


on a bridge in tamna

by fromaseance, jaeyongficfest



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Age Swap, Alternative Universe - Call Me By Your Name Fusion, Coming of Age, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Romance, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, cmbyn au where everyone involved is above 18, gratuitous use of literary references, jeju from someone who has never set foot in jeju, masturbation and sexual fantasies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-11-22 19:09:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20879234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromaseance/pseuds/fromaseance, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaeyongficfest/pseuds/jaeyongficfest
Summary: Perhaps, like the three gods Go, Yang, and Bu—whose arrivals gave rise to the Kingdom of Tamna—everything began the moment Jaehyun stepped foot onto the stone floors of the Lee Summerhouse driveway.Or, alternatively, fic wherein Taeyong is a cautious 19-year-old whose life changes the summer he meets postgraduate student Jung Jaehyun.





	1. The God of Stone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to everyone but most especially to you, dear prompter. I took some liberties and changed some aspects of the original story in creating this fic. First, I changed the ages of the main characters involved. Instead of 17 and 24 (Elio's and Oliver's ages), I chose to go with 19 and 24.
> 
> Additionally, I hope it's alright that I chose to set this story in Jeju instead of in Italy. It just made more sense to me for jaeyong to be in Jeju rather than someplace else in Europe. With that said, I hope this fic still manages to meet your expectations of a cmbyn au for jaeyong.
> 
> Also, as its name suggests, Jeonseol-ri is a product of my imagination. It’s not an actual village in Jeju-do, so no need to try and Google it!

The aluminum-framed glass door opens with a scrape and a chime as he steps out of the store. Like the previous years, this summer’s July air is no different; outside, it is humid, and each breeze that makes its way from the seaside and to the streets is weighed down by the scent of saltwater.

Taeyong screws his eyes and nose up in reflex as a particularly oppressive gale that smells of heated sand and the promise of rain blows towards his direction. In little moments such as this, he thinks, the shores that serve to separate the land from the sea are as good as nonexistent.

His eyes remain narrowed as he looks past the main road and to the coast, where he makes out the motley crowd of fishing boats docked on the shore. The lone figure of a man sitting against the hull of one boat catches his attention, and he continues to observe the way the man’s wide straw hat casts shadows on his hands and legs, around which a welter of taewak nets rests and frames the man as if he were some seaweed creature emerging from the sand.

If he squints hard enough, Taeyong can discern a plume of smoke rising from the stone fort near the edge of the shore, inside which he surmises the divers who make use of the taewak nets are sat in a meeting.

“Before I forget.” Taeyong’s shoulders jerk up when he hears someone speak, the door behind him opening yet again with a bright jingle, the wind chimes perched above it tinkling wildly against the wind. When he turns his head to his right, he finds the boy who tended the cash register just minutes ago fussing over the boxes of fruit lined up by the convenience store entrance.

“It was your birthday the other day, right?” the boy—who looks to be the same age as Taeyong and who Taeyong vaguely remembers seeing at his high school graduation last year—continues to say. “You should get some oranges.”

Taeyong blinks. He contemplates asking the other how he knew about his birthday, but decides against it when he remembers that here, in Jeonseol-ri, everybody knew each other; everybody except, well, Taeyong, who can’t remember the name of the boy in front of him despite recalling an image of the other on top of a stage. Soon enough, the memory tells him that the stage had been at their village’s activity center, where community meetings were held once or twice a month, and that the event where he saw the other was one during which the community picked their youth leaders.

“It’s okay. We’ve got a lot of oranges at home,” Taeyong says instead, averting his gaze from the boy to the store’s glass walls, which were plastered with a variety of posters, some dog-eared and torn like the one from last year’s football season, the season that Jeju United lost against an international team; and some looking like they haven’t been put up for a week. He finds himself focusing on one of the dog-earned ones, specifically the store’s only handmade sign which announces, in bolded, upper-case letters scrawled on a neon blue cartolina: HALF-PRICED PEACHES AND MANDARIN ORANGES EVERY FIRST AND THIRD THURSDAYS OF EACH MONTH!

_ It’s the first Thursday of July today _ , Taeyong realizes.  _ Ah, I’m being baited. _

“I don’t really have any more money with me at the moment...” Taeyong tries, trailing off and taking one step back once the boy holds up a paper bag dangerously close to his face. When he doesn’t take it, the boy lowers the bag and thrusts it into his hands, unmindful of the cloth bag that was already slung around one of his wrists.

“It’s okay,” the boy reassures him, standing with arms akimbo once the paper bag is placed securely on Taeyong’s reluctant hands. “They’re half-priced and are pretty hard to get rid of when they are. Everyone assumes they’re half-rotten already, so you can take these for free. Consider it a late birthday gift.”

“I... Are you sure?” Taeyong gawks, not knowing what to say. He doesn’t even know the boy’s name—he’s never seen him man the convenience store before—and yet here he was, receiving a late birthday gift from said boy. They weren’t friends. What exactly was one supposed to say? “I don’t... really know what to say,” he confesses.

The boy smiles at him. “You could say thank you, for starters. And don’t mind. There’s always a surplus of them. Peaches too. I’ve been trying to tell my dad to send some to Namwon-ri or even further up north but he won’t listen.”

“Okay.” Taeyong nods, eyes frantically search for a nameplate on the boy’s uniform, only to find that, instead of the expected clean white polo shirt, khaki pants, and apron, the other was in mufti. “Well, thank you... Uhm.”

“Kim Doyoung. I sat behind you in third-year. World Literature,” the boy—Doyoung—supplies. “You helped me once at the start of the school year. Remember Dante’s  _ Divina Commedia _ ?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Taeyong says as he nods again. He urges himself to be contented with the half-truth: the question of whether or not he remembers Dante Alighieri’s  _ Divine Comedy  _ was a no-brainer, but the implied question—the one concerned with his inability to remember ever looking behind in his seat to help a lost classmate during third-year World Literature—was something he couldn’t answer without proving his friends’ and parents’ claims regarding his presumed aloofness.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember, by the way. It’s been a little over a year since high school finished for us, after all. But, if you do, then take those oranges as my thanks,” Doyoung says. He begins to brush his foot against a few stray grapes near the base of one of the fruit boxes, obviously aiming to clear the fallen pieces of fruit off the pavement. “You’re home for the summer? I mean, we always assumed you’d go to some fancy university out of the country.”

“Yeah,” Taeyong answers within a beat, the single word seemingly too heavy to keep inside his mouth for too long. He clutches the paper bag close to his chest and looks behind Doyoung, to the wall against which he parked his bicycle earlier. He feels the need to head home.

“What’re you taking?” Doyoung asks, and Taeyong mentally kicks himself.

“Western Philosophy,” Taeyong says. The last time someone asked him about college, he had doltishly blurted out that he was studying marine biology and, as a result, had to abandon his National Geographic magazines for actual books on marine life, most of which were highly-detailed catalog books of Jeju-do’s marine ecosystem. He never got to talk again to the person who had asked him, but at least he was prepared. Now, though, he picks something he knows he can bullshit his way through without needing to dive head-first into another train of pride-induced studying sessions. “How about you? Are you home for the summer too?” he asks in an attempt to steer the conversation away from himself. It works.

“No, I’m not in college. I’ve been helping my parents out since I graduated from high school,” Doyoung answers with a self-assuredness one doesn’t expect to be entwined with such a statement. “Now that I can look after the store, my mom can finally join the haenyeos. It’s been a dream of hers since girlhood,” Doyoung continues, sighing as he nods towards the coast.

“Your mom’s a diver?” 

Turning around to face where Doyoung is looking, Taeyong catches the sight of women who, in their black rubber wetsuits and diving flippers, look like a school of unidentified fish flipping about calmly on the shore. He watches as the women slowly climb aboard the fishing boats, watches as the boats are pushed from the shore to the water where they undoubtedly belong.

“She’s only been training for months, so she’s not that good yet, but she can stay underwater now for a little over three minutes,” Doyoung says, his hand pointing to the coast now. “My dad helps her. He steers one of the fishing boats.”

Taeyong purses his lips. “That’s cool.”

He moves to give back the paper bag filled with oranges to Doyoung, but he is forced to step back instead when a middle-aged woman walks past them and into the store, the front door squeaking in her haste to get inside.

Taeyong and Doyoung exchange looks, and a few seconds pass before Doyoung finally says, “Well. I’ve got to go.”

“Of course.” Taeyong nods, giving up. He never liked to be indebted to anyone, but he thinks he has no choice but to be so this time. “Thank you again. For the oranges, I mean.”

“Don’t mention it. See you around.” With a smile, Doyoung waves him goodbye. He doesn’t wait to see Taeyong’s response as he promptly disappears into the store.

Another minute passes before the conversation’s conclusion dawns on Taeyong. Then, with a sigh, he walks towards his bicycle, props it up by gripping on to one of the handlebars, and places the bags he’s been holding into its front basket before crossing the street and walking away from the store. Because Seogwipo’s main buses don’t pass through this part of the island anymore, Jeonseol-ri’s main road is mostly barren regardless of the time of the day, making it pretty easy to cross and, thus, open to bands of children who like to play tag in the afternoon. Despite this, vehicles still do pass every now and then, and Taeyong keeps that small fact in mind as he stops to stand under an abandoned bus shelter and wait for a certain taxi cab.

While waiting, he unwraps the tangerine-flavored ice pop he bought from the convenience store, which had started melting inside its packaging as soon as he brought it out of the freezer. Nevertheless, Taeyong tries his best to make the most out of it, only to fail when the bottom half of the ice pop breaks away and slides against his hand before landing on the ground with a lousy splat.

Just then, a taxi cab passes by the shelter, its roof a blinding white under the glare of the sun.

Taeyong grimaces as he swiftly bites off the last of the ice pop. He tosses its stick into one of his bags and wipes his hands against the side of his blue shorts. When the vehicle doesn’t turn the corner and instead drives straight towards the road that leads to Taeyong’s house, Taeyong hops onto his bicycle and speeds down the same track until he reaches a particular tree marked by nothing by its ordinariness.

With palms still sticky from the ice pop, Taeyong steers away from the main road and rides past the tree, ducking in order to avoid the many branches that he knows to expect and avoid from experience. The detour takes him to an obscure and dimly-lit forest track, through which he speeds in between patches of pink and yellow rhododendrons.

It’s one of his many secrets—this forest track that serves as a faster route home. He has never told anyone about it, nor does he plan to.

And, in this moment of privacy, Taeyong allows himself to breathe deeply and spread his arms as he lets his bicycle move without pedaling, the crisp sound of dried leaves and stray branches bending and breaking under his bicycle wheels satisfying amid the stillness of the forest. He imagines the sound to be a kind of sweeping, one that allows him to push back certain things to the farthest recesses of his mind. In this space, he doesn’t think of the momentary flicker of confusion in Doyoung’s eyes when he told him what he was studying, nor of the quiet “But I thought you qualified for Columbia University’s literature program, wasn’t that always your dream? Are you really in college?” that he was certain would follow his answers to Doyoung’s questions.

No. In this space, he has none of that. In this space, he thinks only of home.

* * *

Taeyong arrives home just as the taxi cab pulls up in the driveway.

He is greeted by Mr. Han, the family gardener, who takes his bicycle from him and says, voice as gravelly as the sound of pebbles scraping against each other beneath their feet, “New guy? Who is it this summer?”

“Someone from America, Mr. Han,” Taeyong answers, earning him a look of quiet contempt from the old man who was notorious for being irascible towards outsiders, towards—as what Mr. Han calls them— _ foreign encroachers _ .

“ _ Bah _ , another Westerner! Your father has to consider taking in scholars from this island instead. We have many,” Mr. Han tuts, his small face pruning into creases.

Taeyong shakes his head, smiling. “Maybe next year, Mr. Han. You know how my father always longs for the type of conversations he used to get in the States.”

“Beomseok! Taeyong! Come here!” Taeyong’s father calls from the driveway, voice edged with laughter and bonhomie.

“And we have to deal with the same conversations as a result,” Mr. Han grumbles, body already turning towards the shed, which faced the dirty kitchen where Mrs. Han was busy preparing for today’s dinner. “You go to your father first. I’ll put your bike and these oranges away where they belong.”

Taeyong does as he’s told after retrieving the cloth bag from his bicycle’s front basket. The walk towards the driveway where his father stood grinning and shaking hands with the newcomer is short and uneventful, the ground beneath Taeyong changing from a mess of pebbles, to grass, and then, finally, to stone. He keeps his head trained to his feet, only looking up to meet his father’s smile once his father’s polished oxfords and the newcomer’s frayed sandals come into view. The taxi had already left the driveway, leaving the three of them standing under the sun and away from the freckled shade of the trees across the entrance.

The house (the Lee Summerhouse, as it was often referred to by the locals) stands a humble two stories behind them, its faded gray-and-orange brick exterior baking in the sunlight. Its architecture—which was a curious fusion of the Mediterranean Revival style and the prominent features of the traditional French country house—was often accredited to Mr. Lee, Taeyong’s father, who, as a historian, had an affinity for the classic and an excitement for the modern.

“Ah, here’s my son.” Taeyong hears his father say as he reaches the driveway, right after which he feels his father’s arm drape over his shoulders. “He might not look like it, but he’s only five years younger than you. Just turned nineteen two days ago!”

Taeyong winces at the self-introduction his father had voluntarily done for him. He might’ve turned a year older into adulthood, but his birthdays rarely meant a change in treatment from his father, for whom he always filled the role of the family’s only child and, thus, per the unwritten rules of parenthood, deserved to be coddled—even when said child had been increasingly spending most of the time distancing himself from a family’s worth of affection.

“Taeyong, this is Jung Jaehyun. He’ll be staying with us for a little over two months,” his father continues, as if he hadn’t already spent yesterday’s post-dinner repose briefing the family about this summer’s guest. Though Taeyong had only half-listened, he remembers the essentials down pat: this summer’s guest, another postgraduate student from the States. But, this time, the guest was actually Korean-American, someone who spent most of his childhood in the homeland before being transplanted into America.

“That’s me,” this summer’s guest—Jaehyun—says as he proffers a hand towards Taeyong, evidently aiming for a handshake. “Nineteen isn’t a bad age to be. Arguably, it’s the best age. You’re at the cusp of adulthood,” he adds, the edges of his lips curling up in a smile.

“I thought that was before I turned eighteen,” Taeyong says as he trails his eyes from the elder’s extended hand up to the elder’s face, which wore a look of ease he didn’t expect to see from someone who just got off two subsequent plane rides. “I’m Taeyong. Nice to meet you. I hope being twenty-four parries the woes of being jet-lagged?” At that, Taeyong hears his father chuckle softly beside him.

“Oh, those only worsen with age. Mine’s bearable only as long as I don’t catch sight of a bed or a couch. Though I did doze off in the taxi,” Jaehyun says, lips curving into a full smile now. Seeing as Taeyong had no intention of taking his hand, he drops it deftly to his side. “Not one for handshakes?”

The almost imperceptible way Jaehyun’s voice rises as if to tease catches Taeyong’s attention. The younger then searches for the reason behind such ease, such  _ dégagé _ , but he finds nothing but its manifestations: a crown of dark brown hair that looks habitually tousled, the beginnings of a week’s worth of no shaving framing the jawline, a pair of sunglasses clipped on a loose, pale blue shirt with the top three buttons undone; brown cargo shorts, and, of course, a pair of frayed sandals.

Taeyong feels his father’s hand squeeze his shoulder, as if to encourage him to answer, to explain his evasion of a handshake’s civility, and so he does. “I would have shook your hand if mine wasn’t so sticky with ice cream,” he explains, earning him a laugh from his father.

“Ah! Nineteen,” his father says as he pats Taeyong’s back.

Jaehyun only nods, the action in agreement with Taeyong’s father’s claim that youth is measured by whether or not one’s hands were viscid with ice cream.

“Well, this is good. But let’s get you to rest for a bit before dinnertime,” Mr. Lee says as he pushes Taeyong gently towards Jaehyun.

Taeyong makes sense of his father’s gesture immediately. He meets Jaehyun’s gaze before looking at the elder’s other hand, which was wrapped around the handle of one of his two suitcases. This time, it is Taeyong who proffers a hand towards Jaehyun. “Let me take your luggage up to your room,” he says, at which Jaehyun blinks.

“Let him do it, Jaehyun. I need you in my study for a bit before I let you sleep off that jet-lag,” Mr. Lee states, and Jaehyun obliges.

Taeyong’s hand brushes slightly against Jaehyun’s as the elder transfers his hold of the suitcase to the younger. He gives Taeyong an almost apologetic smile before following Mr. Lee inside the house.

“Let Beomseok help you, Taeyong. Beomseok! Come help Taeyong!”

“I can do it fine,  _ Pa _ ,” Taeyong says, before shouting towards the direction of the shed, “Don’t worry, Mr. Han! I can do it on my own!”

And with a huff, he hauls the suitcases into the house, making sure to carry one in each hand. He briefly curses the lack of wheels in Jaehyun’s luggage, before entering the front door, one foot stretching back to toe the door close behind him.

* * *

It takes Taeyong two trips up and down the stairs to get Jaehyun’s luggage inside the guest room, which was connected to Taeyong’s own room by a single, doorless entryway. Their adjoined rooms had only one exit and one bathroom, the former being in Taeyong’s side, and the latter in Jaehyun’s. This meant two things: first, that Jaehyun would have to pass Taeyong’s side whenever he had to go in or out of his bedroom; and second, that Taeyong would have to share the bathroom in Jaehyun’s side or use the communal one downstairs. It wasn’t the most ideal of setups, but Taeyong had gotten used to it; he had been in this same situation for most of his parents’ past summer guests, after all.

“How is he?” Taeyong’s childhood friend, Seulgi, asks as soon as Taeyong steps inside the room with Jaehyun’s suitcases in tow. “He looks like the perfect candidate for a summer fling,” Seulgi adds, body still draped over the large opened French window in Taeyong’s room from which she had undoubtedly watched the whole exchange that Taeyong had with Jaehyun.

“According to whose standards? Yours?” Taeyong chaffs. He walks past Seulgi and drops Jaehyun’s luggage to the floor of the guest room with a thud. When he reemerges from Jaehyun’s room, he tosses the cloth bag he had also been carrying towards Seulgi, who smiles at him in return. “I hope you like it melted,” Taeyong says, referring to the sundae which he picked up from the convenience store specifically for her.

“I don’t, but thanks anyway,” Seulgi says. She begins to open the cup, curses faintly when the ice cream drips over her shirt. “And, no. I think he passes the standards of every girl on this island, though. So, tell me, what do you think of this new guy?”

Kicking off his slippers, Taeyong drops down onto his bed and faces Seulgi who sits cross-legged across him on the chair by his study table. “Mr. Han says he won’t last three days without complaining about the heat.”

“I didn’t ask for Mr. Han’s opinion. I asked for yours, smartass,” Seulgi snaps.

At that, Taeyong lays his back on the bed and stares at the ceiling for a good minute before answering, “I think nothing. He hasn’t made that much of an impression on me.”

Seulgi laughs. “So  _ your _ standards are the ones he needs to pass.”

“He doesn’t need my approval. He already has my father’s,” Taeyong says flatly, rolling in bed to rest on his side. He breathes in the sharp smell of floor wax from Jaehyun’s bedroom and closes his eyes. “So I wouldn’t worry about him passing or not.”

“Well, I think the locals will like him. Don’t you?” Seulgi asks, statement ending with a pop as she drags the little wooden spoon out of her mouth and dips it again in the sundae cup. When Taeyong doesn’t answer, she abandons the spoon and opts to drink the melted ice cream straight out of the cup as she continues, “Junhee, especially.”

Taeyong scrunches his nose. “We don’t have to worry about entertaining ourselves this summer, then.”

“What?” Seulgi exclaims. “I thought you liked Junhee!”

“I never did.” 

“I heard she dumped you. Twice.”

“Choke on your ice cream, Seulgi.”

“But never on a dick,” Seulgi quips, then whines. “Ah, I left Seoul and Irene to visit you and this is what I get? You better entertain me this summer. After all that we’ve been through...”

Taeyong groans at Seulgi’s last sentence, the unwanted images of him fooling around with Seulgi during high school—when the latter hadn’t yet discovered she was a lesbian—suddenly resurfacing. “She’s not even your girlfriend, and aren’t you also here for your family?”

“Not  _ yet _ —” Seulgi stills, eyes turning up to face the entrance of the room upon hearing steps come up the stairs. “Okay. I’m going.”

“Don’t come back,” Taeyong says without any venom in his voice. He watches from the bed as Seulgi stands and heads for the door, where she comes face-to-face with Jaehyun. He listens as the two of them exchange names and greetings, before Seulgi continues down the stairs and Jaehyun strides into the room, shirt billowing slightly against the wind of his motion.

Taeyong stands up just in time before Jaehyun reaches his bedside. “Let me show you to your room,” he offers, going past the entryway leading to the guest room without sparing the elder a glance nor a chance to respond.

When they’re both standing in Jaehyun’s room, Taeyong starts pointing around. “This is your study. That’s your bed. That’s the closet. And that’s the bathroom—we both share it, by the way.”

“Cool. Thanks,” Jaehyun says dully, statement pronounced only by the sound of the mattress springing under a great weight.

Turning around, Taeyong finds the elder collapsed on the bed, his frayed sandals kicked off haphazardly near the foot of the bed frame.

“I think I get it. But I hope you don’t mind if I ask you about things when I wake up,” Jaehyun continues, voice muffled and face buried into a pillow. He waves a hand towards what he presumes to be Taeyong’s direction as he says, “Thank you for bringing my luggage up. Sorry. Can you tell your dad I might not wake up for dinner?”

Taeyong nods absentmindedly. Then, realizing he couldn’t be seen, speaks, “Sure. Rest up. We can always have your welcome dinner tomorrow.”

“Great. Thanks, kid.” Jaehyun says, before drifting to silence.

Taeyong narrows his eyes. Without prompt, he walks towards the bathroom, turns the faucet on, and washes his hands clean of ice cream and grime. When he comes back to Jaehyun’s bedside, he finds that the elder had already fallen fast asleep, mouth slightly agape in slumber—gone was the ease that Taeyong had witnessed earlier at the driveway, replaced by another kind of defenselessness, of a complete indifference with how one carries the body.

Taeyong leaves Jaehyun’s room and collapses onto his own bed.

This summer’s house guest, he thinks, is different. Whether or not that’s a good thing, though, is something that he has yet to figure out. And, later that day, in the evening, with Jaehyun still sleeping soundly in the next room, Taeyong writes in his journal: 

_ The God of Stone has come. He slumbers as still as the dragon in Yongduam, but life doesn’t leave him. He hasn’t stolen anything, except for the budding attention of a piddling passerby. _

* * *

Taking in scholars during the summer is Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s way of showing their support for all kinds of research and scholarly works. Every summer, the guest, who is typically a postgraduate student chosen through an informal family deliberation in Mr. Lee’s study, gets to spend a little over two months in Jeju-do revising their dissertations before publication with the guidance of Mr. and Mrs. Lee, who were learned scholars and professors themselves. The whole arrangement was initially Mr. Lee’s idea, who asks for nothing in return but for the guests to be focused and productive with their work and in their occasional roles as Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s research assistants (this part of the arrangement was always done willingly by most guests, who considered it as the only form of compensation they could give in return for the Lees’ hospitality and generosity).

As what had become customary, each guest is to be welcomed with a grand dinner comprised of traditional Korean dishes with a special focus on recipes native to Jeju-do. Yesterday’s dinner, however, had to be postponed due to the guest’s unavailability, which elicited an unusual display of disappointment from Mrs. Han, who spent yesterday morning and afternoon preparing for Jaehyun’s welcome.

“Ah, here’s our guest! Come sit!” Mr. Lee declares theatrically as Jaehyun steps into the backyard, where the Lees had already settled around the outdoor dining area for breakfast. “How did you find your room? Slept soundly? Mrs. Han here thought your flight got delayed; she didn’t see you at all yesterday.”

“I’m sorry for the trouble, Mrs. Han,” Jaehyun apologizes, bowing slightly before pulling the vacant seat next to Taeyong and sitting down. “And, yes. The room is just perfect, Mr. Lee. I think I slept more than I did in all my years of college combined.”

Mrs. Lee, who sat across Jaehyun, laughs at this. “My, aren’t you handsome today,” she coos, then, flicking her cigarette against the ashtray near her coffee cup, says, “Please get him his breakfast,” after which Mrs. Han merely nods before disappearing to the kitchen.

From his seat beside Taeyong, Jaehyun flashes the younger a small smile, a pair of dimples Taeyong didn’t notice yesterday popping into view on his pale face, which he undoubtedly shaved before coming down for breakfast. “Morning,” he greets Taeyong, voice subdued by the volume with which Mr. and Mrs. Lee began to argue about the best blend of coffee. “Thanks for telling them about dinner.”

“It was nothing,” Taeyong mumbles in response. He straightens himself in his seat and picks up his spoon, which he then uses to stir the warm bowl of rice porridge sitting in front of him, blowing softly at the dish as he does so. From the porridge rises a trail of aromatic steam, which swirls and blends with the plumes of gray from the coffee cups and from Mrs. Lee’s cigarette, causing Taeyong to duck slightly, shoulders tensing and eyes squinting at the makeshift cloud that hovered around and above the wooden dining table. Despite its standoffish character, he doesn’t mind his bent neck and bunched shoulders. Breakfast, for him, was always best spent half-awake and listening to or watching his parents talk to each other or to guests.

Wordlessly, he observes as Mrs. Han emerges from the house and makes her way to Jaehyun’s side with a salver in her hands. Jaehyun, who was listening to Taeyong’s parents, says his thanks, his face lighting up, only to twist mildly in confusion upon seeing that Mrs. Han laid two sets of meals in front of him: the first was the same as Taeyong’s—a warm bowl of  _ jeonbokjuk _ and small plates of  _ jaban _ and tofu in seasoned soy sauce as side dishes; and, the second, three pieces of toast smeared with bright-orange marmalade and topped with two perfectly poached eggs and a few strips of bacon.

“Don’t worry about not finishing either,” Mrs. Lee says even before Jaehyun could vocalize the question in his eyes. “Mrs. Han wants you to eat well but isn’t sure if you’re ready to forget about the kind of breakfast you got used to in California.”

Before responding, Jaehyun makes a point of taking in a spoonful of the abalone rice porridge that happened to be one of Mrs. Han’s specialties, his lips smacking as soon as the silver spoon leaves his mouth emptied. “Oh, I’m more than ready!” he says while grinning. “This is a lot, Mrs. Han. Thank you.”

Satisfied with Jaehyun’s reaction, Mrs. Han finally smiles. “You’re welcome, Mr. Jung.” Then, whipping her head towards the dirty kitchen where a shrill cry starts to resound, shouts, “Hanbin-ah! Stop crying or you’ll turn to stone!”

Both Jaehyun’s and Taeyong’s necks turn towards the direction where Mrs. Han marches towards and disappears. Almost expectedly, Jaehyun asks after a moment, “Stone?”

“From the age-old myth of Jeju’s creator goddess, Seolmundae Halmang,” Mr. Lee supplies. When Jaehyun doesn’t seem to follow, he chuckles and shakes his head. “I forgive you for not knowing only because you’ve never set foot in Jeju before.”

“Tell him about it, sweetie.” Mrs. Lee prods her husband, her cigarette brushing against Mr. Lee’s clothed shoulder.

“Well, okay.” Mr. Lee sighs, though more for the dramatic effect than from exhaustion. “Listen well, Jaehyun. This is one of the first myths we’ll take up in reviewing your dissertation. Once upon a time...”

Taeyong recalls the tragic story in his head, staring as Jaehyun nods intermittently throughout his father’s retelling: 

Once upon a time, there lived an unimaginably titanic and strong old lady named Seolmundae Halmang. With only seven tosses of her shovel which she struck against the earth, the mystical old lady created the islands, mountains, valleys, hills, and rivers of Jeju-do—including Mount Halla, her proudest creation and the island’s largest mountain.

_ Her hair was gray, but her smile was as strong as the sun, _ Taeyong thinks as he spies Mrs. Han materialize from inside the house with her seven-year-old son, Hanbin. She holds him in her arms, one hand patting Hanbin’s back to calm him.

Seolmundae Halmang, as Taeyong recalls, gave birth to 500 sons.

And one day, while all her sons were out hunting, she set out to cook her special soup. But by an ill twist of fate, the mighty Seolmundae accidentally fell into the gigantic pot of soup. 

“Have you tried the soup, Hanbin-ah? It’ll calm your stomach.” Taeyong hears Mrs. Han say, and he sets down his own spoon.

As if noticing, Jaehyun discreetly pushes the plate of toasted bread towards Taeyong with the silent thrust of a finger. When Taeyong looks up to question the gesture, he finds that Jaehyun is still focused on his father’s story—the elder’s body leaning forwards in interest and elbows on top of the table as he rests his chin on folded hands. Casting his glance towards Jaehyun’s plate which was now in front of him, Taeyong lifts one toast from the pile, his fingers coming into contact with the treacly, honey-orange marmalade.

Soon after the tragedy, Seolmundae’s sons returned home. Tired and famished from their hunting trip, they were overjoyed to see the big pot of warm soup waiting for them. Clueless of the fact that their mother had become part of the meal, they hurriedly devoured the soup. Only one of the sons knew, but he couldn’t stop them in time; everyone was too preoccupied with hunger. It was only after the pot was emptied that he could get the attention of his siblings and tell them. And when he finally did, the sons were immediately struck with grief. Some vomited, but most howled and cried bitter tears. Together, Seolmundae’s 500 sons cried and cried until they hardened into stones from the grief they felt for their mother.

“That’s the power of truth,” Mr. Lee says in a somber tone as he concluded the story. “From it one either feels an overwhelming sense of joy that sends the soul a thousand meters up to the sky, or—more often than not, because the world is built on hard truths—an all-encompassing grief that pulls one down like gravity and sends them crashing to the ground where they harden and become the likeness of stone.”

There’s a profound silence until Jaehyun clears his throat, mouth lifting itself from where it had rested against folded hands to speak. “I don’t know. That can also be the power of a soup that’s quite literally from one’s mother,” he says, making a show of his emptied bowl of rice porridge.

The table erupts in laughter—even Taeyong, who had his neck bent down again, lets out a quiet snicker.

“There’s a statue of Seolmundae Halmang in the town plaza, if you’re interested,” Mrs. Lee announces animatedly.

“Right!” Mr. Lee nods. “Taeyong can take you there and show you around town while at it.”

“I can’t see why not!” Jaehyun says. He turns to Taeyong, smile veering on playful and eyes seemingly affected with the same enthusiasm that had suddenly veiled the dining table. “Only if it’s not a bother, of course.”

“It’s not,” Taeyong answers plainly, before ducking again and picking at his plate of dried fish, his chopsticks drawing zigzags into the meat. “I’d be glad to show you around.”

* * *

That night, after the mid-afternoon tour around town, the quick dip in the pool by the garden, the much-awaited grand dinner, the laughter, the pleasant booze-induced buzz, the blue-and-violet lights of the bi-monthly Friday night dance at the town’s activity center, the new friends made, the glances exchanged amidst a sea of people, and the evening walk home—which was silent save for the occasional remarks and the ill-kept chuckles directed towards the  _ dol hareubangs _ or the phallic stone statues scattered along the dimly-lit forest track they travelled—Taeyong writes in his journal:

_ The piddling passerby sits on the shore, limbs and clothes coating with sand. With the orange that he peels in his hands, he builds an imaginary fire and waits. Soon enough, he thinks—hopes—the God of Stone will wake. _

* * *

Taeyong doesn’t know exactly when it started, but he guesses it might’ve begun when Junhee came to visit the Lee Summerhouse. It had only been a week since Jaehyun’s arrival in Jeonseol-ri, but Jaehyun had already managed to win the favors of most of the locals he interacted with. Parents adored him. Boys wanted to befriend and learn from him. And the girls, as Seulgi predicted, fawned over him—especially Junhee, who hit it off with Jaehyun at the dance during his first Friday night in town. Even Mrs. Han, whose husband remained steadfast with his first impressions of the summer guest, had quickly become attached to Jaehyun, who she claims to be someone who eats food the way it should be eaten: deliciously and unapologetically.

“Jaehyun!” Junhee called as she stopped in the driveway on her bicycle. She had rang her bell repeatedly to get people’s attention even before she arrived, her face creasing with impatience under the sun.

Taeyong, who had been reading inside his father’s study, popped out of the windowsill to see where the ringing was coming from. His first instinct upon seeing Junhee was to hide, but he refrained from doing so when he was certain that he had been spotted.

“Is _ Jae _ around?” Junhee asked as she moved towards the window of Mr. Lee’s study, all while twisting her finger around the ribbon on her shirt. She was wearing a plaid yellow summer dress with a cut that accentuated her petite waist. 

Although Junhee was only a year older than Taeyong, she had the mien and the body of a woman who was fully-matured and who seemed to know more than she let on. Her lips weren’t tinted but glossed, her cheeks dusted with a color that only came from exercising under the sun. With her long dark hair coloring brown under the sunlight, Taeyong thought she looked stunning.

“Oh. He’s not,” Taeyong answered, trying his best not to mind the American nickname and accent with which Junhee referred to Jaehyun. “He’s in town picking up a few books from the library. Why?” 

“That’s too bad. I’m only here because he told me it was okay to come over,” Junhee said, pouting as she removed her hands from where they were idly combing her hair and placed them back onto her bicycle’s handlebars. “Well, I better get going.”

“Wait, he asked you to come over?” Taeyong piped up, the incredulity in his voice evident. “I mean, I could always tell him to call you up later since you stopped by.” In his head, Taeyong thought about the first time Junhee and Jaehyun met, the image of Jaehyun’s hand resting limply on Junhee’s waist inscribing itself behind his eyelids.

With her eyebrows perked up, Junhee only hummed. “Thanks, but no need. I’ll go to the library myself,” she said with a renewed bout of energy in her voice before biking away with a wave and an offhanded  _ ‘see you around!’ _

And, sure enough, when Jaehyun came home from the library, he talked of Junhee.

Taeyong didn’t expect nor understand it, but he felt a prickling in his chest. There was something about the idea of Jaehyun spending time with his longtime, on-and-off crush that perturbed him. He found himself fixating on the conversation he had with the elder earlier, when Jaehyun—in a manner that Taeyong first thought of as uncharacteristic but later recategorized as an integral part of Jaehyun’s character which he could only summarize as ‘fickle’ and ‘unpredictable’—had rejected his offer to accompany him at the town library with an icy “ _ maybe next time” _ instead of what had come to be known as his catchphrase:  _ I can’t see why not! _

“You were reading when I left the house, and now you’re transcribing music? What can’t you do?” Jaehyun asked, arms akimbo as he passed by Taeyong’s room to enter his own.

“Many things,” Taeyong replied. Though he slid off the thin and wiry headphones from his head, he didn’t turn to face Jaehyun.

“Like?” Jaehyun asked, the upward lilt in his voice divulging interest.

Taeyong paused to think:  _ Like being an attractive-enough company to the town library, for one _ . Then, after mentally chastising himself, said, “Like finishing this transcription before you arrived to distract me from it.”

Jaehyun hummed. “So I’m distracting now?”

_ Amazing _ , Taeyong mused.  _ Barely a week since they met each other and they’re already sharing mannerisms _ . “Everything can distract me,” he said.  _ It doesn’t make you anything special _ .

“I see.”

Taeyong could hear the elder shuffle about in his room. He looked around his own table, cursing softly when he noticed that he had left his journal open.

After the slow drag of a chair against the wooden floor, Jaehyun spoke again, “I met your friend Junhee at the library earlier.”

It’s Taeyong who hummed right after. “I see.”

“She told me she dumped you twice,” Jaehyun said, laughing softly and good-naturedly. He and Taeyong were then hunched over their study tables in their respective rooms. Taeyong, who had just come from his afternoon dip in the pool garden and was therefore half-naked and drying in his swimming shorts, had his back against Jaehyun, who, in turn, was facing him and had a clear view of his figure. “Was she telling the truth?”

When Taeyong didn’t answer, Jaehyun continued, “Do you really like her that much?”

Taeyong only turned his head slightly to spare Jaehyun a look which the latter had come to learn to mean he didn’t want to discuss something. Effectively, Jaehyun dropped the subject, and Taeyong sighed inwardly, his shoulders bunching up as he hung his head. He didn’t understand it: how Jaehyun could easily tell him to back off one moment and then act chummy with him later, as if the elder wasn’t in the habit of bringing up the boundaries that he liked to retrace over the sand between them every now and then.

Shaking his head, Taeyong brought his headphones back against his ears as he played the recording of the piano piece he had just started transcribing, the pile of blank music sheets crumpling slightly under the weight of his elbows which he let rest on the table. He couldn’t look around nor move, not when he could feel the weight of Jaehyun’s eyes on his bare back. This wasn’t the first time that he felt the elder’s eyes on him throughout the first week, but he secretly wished it would be the last time. The recent pages of his journal had borne witness to this unexplained attention:  _ What did I do over lunch to receive that stare? _ ;  _ Dinner. Two piercing eyes. Fleeting but present gaze. Did I perhaps make him angry with that joke?; Lunch time again. I think I mistook the warmth of Mrs. Han’s soup for the momentary glint (I think) I saw in his eyes _ ;  _ Sleepy eyes during breakfast. I caught him and he looked away. _

From his seat he imagined Jaehyun studying him as he had once seen the elder study a map, one finger gliding through important landmarks as if in the task of connecting dots. Effortlessly, Taeyong let himself think of this and effortlessly, too, did he rebuke himself for it.

Then, reaching his limit, he turned around, the beginnings of a glare plastered on his face. But there was no Jaehyun; the elder, much to Taeyong’s chagrin, had already left the room without him noticing.

* * *

(It takes Taeyong a little over two months later to realize Jaehyun did a lot of things without him noticing.)

* * *

But it could also have started much later, whatever it was that had Taeyong tossing and turning in his bed and writing more than usual in his journal come eventide. Much later meant two weeks into Jaehyun’s visit, specifically on the day of Yudu, when the people of Jeonseol-ri flocked towards Jeonseol river in the afternoon—as they did annually every fifteenth day of the sixth lunar month—to wash their hair and bodies before beginning a neighborhood feast.

Willing to gratify the enthusiasm of their guest, Jaehyun, who had expressed how much he wanted to celebrate the festivity with the locals he had come to love, the Lee family came down to the riverside that day for the first time in three years.

Seulgi and Doyoung were also there with their families, and both teamed up to drag Taeyong from where he had been sitting on the grass and reading a book to the cool and relentless stream of the river.

Against Taeyong’s protests, Doyoung washed (forcefully drenched and soaped) Taeyong’s hair, cackling as he did even when Taeyong flailed about when soap suds started to get into his eyes. The water was cold even when it was in the middle of the afternoon, and Taeyong felt himself shiver the moment a bucketful of it poured down his scalp. Soon enough, what started as a ritual cleansing to ward off inauspicious energies eventually morphed into a lousy water fight between him and Doyoung—the two of them only stopping once Seulgi pointed at something in the distance.

Narrowing his eyes as he placed a hand to keep the glare of the sun from obstructing his gaze, Taeyong caught sight of Jaehyun and Junhee’s smiling faces as the two sat on a rock. For a minute or so, he continued to watch as Junhee helped dry Jaehyun’s hair with a towel, both breaking into gales of laughter at something that Jaehyun said.

“Told you Junhee would go after him,” Seulgi said with a smug smile as she walked over to the spot where, just a few moments earlier, Taeyong and Doyoung were splashing water at each other.

“Who’s him?” Doyoung asked, bending down to wash his arms clean of soap, his shorts dampening even more when he wiped his hands dry against his sides.

“Just my family’s summer guest,” Taeyong answered. Then, shaking his head almost as if doing so would dry his hair immediately, he started to walk towards the riverside. “I’m going to the bookstore to pick up books my dad ordered. You guys can come if you like,” he said.

Earlier that morning, Jaehyun had once again declined to come with him to town, even when the elder had easily accepted Taeyong’s offer to help him with translating a Korean folk tale that he needed for his dissertation the other day. As always, Taeyong just shook the rejection off. It was something that he was starting to get used to from the elder.

At the bookstore, Taeyong found himself alone and rifling through shelves to pass the time. He didn’t want to go home just yet, not when being inside the store made him feel a calmness he hadn’t felt in weeks.

Midway through his aimless search, he began flipping through an illustrated anthology of a British poet’s poems, nodding to himself as he read some pieces that he had only encountered in passing before. Being alone and mumbling to himself in a bookstore aisle as if in the middle of an incantation was familiar to Taeyong—and familiarity was something that he sorely missed, something he hasn’t stumbled upon since the day his parents’ summer guest arrived.

It was only when he spotted a painting of a knight lying forlorn by a riverside that Taeyong closed the book, wedged it in between his father’s pile, and sauntered towards the cashier, where he was greeted with a knowing smile from the store owner.

“A book of poems,” the store owner mused, quietly referring to Taeyong’s literary taste which he had become acquainted with through the years Taeyong and his parents frequented the store. “And Keats, too. Care to explain?”

“A compulsion,” Taeyong said and, somehow, it was enough, for both the store owner and himself.

Familiarity, Taeyong thought at the time as he walked out of the store with a heavy paper bag in hand and a heavier urge on his shoulders, was something that you either cocoon yourself into or break away from.

That night, instead of writing in his journal, Taeyong wrote on the first page of the book. With his hand painting harsh shadows over his own writing under the light of the lamp above his bowed head, he performed a pitiful act of self-control, a negation of a moment’s compulsion:

_ I mourn the fate of this book, for it is doomed to never realize its reason of being. On a whim, I bought it while thinking of you. And, on a whim, also, I decided not to give it to you. Unwanted as it is, it shall stay with me as the cacophony of things I hold in silence. _

Familiarity—the stagnancy, the absence of change—he learned at last, was also something that the self could be deceived into believing.

* * *

_ In his wait, the piddling passerby falls asleep. He drifts into a capricious dream, one where he finds the God of Stone awake and dancing with the sirens, only to realize moments later that he, himself, had turned into a siren. _

* * *

Contrary to Mr. Han’s proud claim, Jaehyun lasts more than three days without complaining about the heat.

Jaehyun, as Taeyong also came to realize just recently, is the type of person who never complains. The only time he came close to complaining was when the book he had been annotating fell into the garden pool after the flimsy plastic table he was using toppled over. He managed to stop the table from completely collapsing to the ground, but the things he placed on it, including the book he was reading and a glass of orange juice, had fallen off and into the pool even before he could save them.

Taeyong still remembers the look of quiet vexation that flashed across Jaehyun’s face: the furrowed brows, the thinned lips, and the clenched jaw. He had half-expected Jaehyun to curse, but the elder just put the table aside and jumped into the water wordlessly to retrieve his things.

Now, having learned to forsake the table the hard way, Jaehyun lies supine on a blanket he placed over the concrete tiles before the rectangular pool, his sunglasses snug on the bridge of his nose, damp hair carelessly pushed back, and skin turning redder with every second spent reading and apricating under the sun.

Jeonseol-ri in the third week of July is at its hottest—so hot that the cicadas seem to chirp louder during the day, almost as if in the belief that the increase in speed and strength with which they rub and flap their wings would bring about the air needed to ward off the pitiless summer heat, which rose from the ground and from the roofs of the houses scattered around town in heat waves visible only to those who squint hard enough.

“What are you reading?” Jaehyun suddenly asks Taeyong. The two of them had been lounging in the garden for quite some time now, both preoccupied with their own activities.

It was an arrangement that they had somehow agreed to do together without ever speaking about it: if one couldn’t be found in his room or in Mr. Lee’s study, he was most probably by the garden pool. And when one was in the garden, the other was almost always and unfailingly there, too.

Taeyong, who’s sitting on a garden chair and under an umbrella across Jaehyun, answers after a moment. “Keats,” he says, flipping through the pages of the book he bought from the bookstore not long ago. “You?”

“Heraclitus,” Jaehyun answers from his spot. Then, placing his book facedown against his bare stomach, adds, “But not so much as reading now than passively letting my eyes glide through words and paragraphs. I’ve read this book thrice but your dad still wants me to reread it. He thinks it will help me the fourth time.”

“But shouldn’t reading it be easier the fourth time around?” Taeyong teases, front teeth coming down to bite his bottom lip and keep himself from looking satisfied when Jaehyun takes the sunglasses off his eyes just to throw him a look.

“ _ Touché _ . Perhaps that’s also the reason I’m bored,” Jaehyun concludes.

“So you’re saying it  _ has _ gotten  _ t0o _ easy for you?” Taeyong tries. He knows he’s testing the waters now. He feels the grip he has around the spine of the book he’s holding tighten when Jaehyun sits up.

“Since when did you get so smart?” Jaehyun croaks. Then, lying back down, his torso falling with a soft thud against the ground as he says, with a voice that would have been commanding if he didn’t speak in a sigh, “Stop grilling me. Read me a poem instead. I haven’t heard Keats since my last Literature class, and that was from my undergraduate years.”

“God, you sound old,” Taeyong kids, rolling his eyes for the jest. For the past few weeks, he had been cautious around the elder, who seems to like playing an unspoken game of temperatures with him. Warm one moment, then cold the next—that is Taeyong’s lasting assessment of Jung Jaehyun, after which he taught himself to continuously expect the cold drafts before they came, rendering himself always surprised whenever warmth was given.

But judging from the way the elder’s dimples didn’t seem to disappear from his face, Taeyong surmises that today is one of Jaehyun’s warm days. And so he continues, willing to oblige if it means Jaehyun would momentarily refrain from treating him as if they didn’t see each other every day: “Which one?” he asks.

Lifting the book from his stomach and using it to cover his face, Jaehyun says, voice muffled behind the yellowed pages of his Heraclitus, “It doesn’t matter. Read me your favorite, if you have one.”

To this, Taeyong nods. He flips through the book, two fingers tracing over the titles of each poem they land on. The writings he sees are in English and are supplemented with illustrations that were, from their heavy usage of chiaroscuro, without a doubt, by European artists. When he finds the spread that had caught his eye the first time he held the book—the page that bore the painting of the lonely knight lying in a field of bluish grass—he takes a deep breath and, after a pause, begins to read in a language that he doesn’t speak as fluently as he understands it.

“ _ La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad _ . John Keats,” he starts, his voice blending with the steady chirping of the cicadas. “ _ O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering? _

...  _ I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful—a faery’s child _ .

_ .... She took me to her Elfin grot, and there she wept and sighed full sore, and there I shut her wild wild eyes with kisses four. _

_ ... And there she lullèd me asleep, and there I dreamed—Ah! Woe betide!— _

_ ... I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci thee hath in thrall!’ _

_ ... And I awoke and found me here, on the cold hill’s side. _

_ ... Alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing.” _

Silence, a pause where the summer cicadas drown out the detritus of the poem read.

Jaehyun is the one who breaks the silence, the book he had draped over his face now resting against his chest. “Have you ever met a lady in the meads?”

“I haven’t. Have you?” Taeyong answers.

“I think so,” Jaehyun says. “But she’s just a lady, and I have no intentions of being her knight.”

Tilting his head to the side, Taeyong places the book on the table and crosses his arms and his ankles. “Who says  _ you’re _ the knight? If you truly have no interest in being anything more than a passerby, and haven’t done what passersby don’t do... then how do you account for the way she expects you to be with her?”

“I don’t. And I don’t think she expects that of me. We’re only friends,” Jaehyun says, sitting up now. “I refuse to admit I’ve led her on. Do you think I’ve led her on?”

“I  _ think _ she’ll be hurt if she were hearing this now. If I were in her shoes, I know I’d be.”

A pause. Jaehyun looks at Taeyong and sees in the younger’s eyes that he knows exactly what he is talking about, that they’re on the same page.

“One act of kindness doesn’t and shouldn’t translate to affection...”

Taeyong tuts. “But you’ve met her more than once, and the smile on her face when she’s with you and the gloom that replaces it when you leave her suggests that there has been more than one act of kindness.”

“ _ Someone  _ has been observant,” Jaehyun mutters as he puts aside his book. Afterwards, he brings his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs. “Still, should politeness be misconstrued as repeated kindness?”

A warm draft of wind that smells of the sea blows and ruffles the trees above them, their speckled shadows dancing around the ground and on top of Taeyong’s and Jaehyun’s figures. A few branches and leaves snap and fall, and Taeyong closes his eyes involuntarily, only to open them again when the wind stops and makes way for silence.

It is then that Taeyong answers. “No, but it often is,” he says. “And for you to be unaware of that makes you a perfect subject for a modern sequel to Keats’ poem.  _ Un bel homme sans merci _ :  _ a narcissist’s ballad _ .”

At this, Jaehyun laughs, shaking his head. Then, he whines without much fervor, stretching his arms up and his legs outwards as he does so, “Ah, Lee Taeyong, you’re cruel.”

Taeyong blinks. “Cruel how?” he asks, flitting his gaze from where Jaehyun stared at him and began to stand up, and then back to his table, to his open palms that seem to offer an answer to his question he can’t quite decode.

“First, for calling me a narcissist,” Jaehyun begins as he starts to walk towards Taeyong, one hand holding his sunglasses and the other raking through his hair which had now dried and thus falls softly over his forehead. “Second, for possibly luring me to talk about Junhee with your choice of poem.”

“No. That wasn’t—”

“Don’t think I don’t have an idea what you and your friends talk about,” Jaehyun says, and Taeyong flinches.

“I’m not the one who brings it up...” Taeyong mumbles, even when the statement he lets go of holds nothing but the truth. If there’s any topic Taeyong doesn’t want to talk about, it’s the one which involves both Jaehyun and Junhee—two names that Taeyong likes to pretend he doesn’t know nor recognize when mentioned, even when they swung over his consciousness every now and then like a baited hook.

It is only when he reaches Taeyong’s side that Jaehyun stops walking, his shadow superimposed over the umbrella’s shade over Taeyong, who sticks his back against his chair, his hands gripping the armrests, face blank and chin tipped towards Jaehyun.

“It doesn’t matter. Because you’re cruel anyway without it—and, chiefly for this last reason,” Jaehyun starts as he bends down and raises his arm towards Taeyong’s face. A small smile makes its way to his lips when he catches the younger’s eyes closing. He lowers his hand and brushes the fallen leaves off Taeyong’s hair, his fingers brushing against forehead and scalp, as he continues, “Telling me how you think of me without my asking.”

When Taeyong opens his eyes, he thinks he sees something akin to disappointment coat Jaehyun’s eyes, but he shakes the thought immediately off his head. The look, if it really existed, which it didn’t—at least to Taeyong—came and went by too fast to be considered something real.

Without waiting for a response from Taeyong, Jaehyun walks away with his things, presumably to take a shower and head to town as he normally does at this hour, leaving Taeyong frozen in his seat and thinking about the name emblazoned on Jaehyun’s book.

_ Heraclitus _ . Taeyong heaves a heavy breath through his mouth. He racks his head for the lectures in Western Philosophy that his father occasionally gave him in his study, his shoulders turning lax as he does so.  _ A pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who—in his fixation over the concept of change—argued that one cannot step into the same river twice _ .

He blinks. The philosopher’s logic seems attractive to him all of a sudden. Does a river stay the same after one has placed their hand in it? Or does its identity change into The River who has touched one’s hand?

In the same strain of thought, one might ask: is the Lee Taeyong whose hair had just been gently touched by Jaehyun the same Lee Taeyong who, yesterday, swore he would stop after Jaehyun glared at him from across the dining table?

* * *

The answer to Taeyong’s quasi-philosophical inquiry is simple: no. Like how the seemingly inconsequential dip of a hand can alter the steady flow of a river, the gentle brush of fingers against one’s hair and forehead can also alter the current along which one’s thoughts flow.

If he had to describe that day in the garden with one word, Taeyong thinks he would go with ‘catalyst.’ A noun that, in his situation, refers to the first touch which spawned a kind of cautiousness that he has involuntarily adopted towards Jaehyun, specifically towards the elder’s proximity and touches. After the exchange in the garden, the subtle, accidental brush of hands or shoulders whenever Taeyong passes by Jaehyun in the hallway or in the cramped staircase towards their adjoined rooms lingers for more than usual. The same cautiousness most especially infiltrates the rare times when Jaehyun—warm, smiling, joking Jaehyun—would put a hand on Taeyong’s shoulder and let it rest there for a minute or two, a time frame which Taeyong spends thinking about anything but the hand on his shoulder and how much he sometimes wishes for it to stretch or grow a phantom length and become the same comfort as an arm over his back. 

The same kind of wishful thinking ran through Taeyong’s head yesterday when, out of the blue, Jaehyun offered to rub sunscreen on his back. “It’s gotten a shade of red,” he remembers hearing Jaehyun say as he felt the press of a palm against the small of his back, the touch at once distant and intimate in how it seemed to epitomize courtesy but also suggested something more. Taeyong didn’t dwell on it. The two of them were sitting on one of the sunbathing chairs that Mr. Han had placed in the garden, with Taeyong struggling to keep his head bowed towards his thighs as Jaehyun lathered and massaged a generous amount of lotion up and down his back.

“Does it hurt?” Jaehyun asked, and Taeyong remembers only shaking his head in response, too preoccupied with the thought of how much he wouldn’t mind if the elder were to notch lacerations all over the sore skin of his back. “Tell me if it does.”

“It doesn’t—” Taeyong began to say, but the way he recoiled to the side and away from Jaehyun’s touch when the elder used both hands to rub circles around his shoulders, fingers pressing against his collarbone—as if to ease the tension he didn’t know was there—said otherwise, at least to Jaehyun’s eyes.

“Sorry. You looked like you needed that, is all,” Jaehyun said as he withdrew his hands from Taeyong’s shoulders.

_ No _ . Taeyong mourned it, the loss of that shred of intimacy, that single droplet from the pool of other things that he had recently found himself wanting from the elder.  _ Touch me more then _ , he wanted to say at the time.  _ Touch me more until I become pliant under your fingers _ . But he didn’t. Instead, he made a show of stretching his neck to the side as he said, “Thanks. I feel better.”

“You’re welcome. You can ask me to do these things for you, you know,” Jaehyun said, and he paused to pat Taeyong’s shoulder one last time before going back to lie on his spot near the pool.

Now, while idly popping grapes into his mouth as he sat with his ankles crossed on the kitchen counter, Taeyong wonders if Jaehyun meant what he said. If he asked Jaehyun to strip the white tank top from his back, massage a soothing balm along his spine, and peel the dead skin from his sunburned chest, would the elder really do it? Or if he asked Jaehyun to wash his feet because he couldn’t bring himself to do it would the elder, without complaint, kneel before him, take his feet into the calloused pads of his own hands, and wipe them clean with a warm cloth? How far does the offer go? And how far is Taeyong willing to stretch it if he were to take it?

“I’ll handle it, Mr. Han!” Jaehyun’s voice resounds from the backyard, and even before Taeyong could bite into the peach in his hand, in comes the elder, his bare chest glistening with sweat as his arms strained to hold up a basket full of newly harvested peaches. Sometime within the first month of Jaehyun’s stay, Mr. Han had warmed up to Jaehyun, who the family discovered to be really knowledgeable with things related to yardwork. 

“That’s the last of them,” Jaehyun mutters to no one in particular as he places the basket to the ground with a soft thud. With the back of his hand, he wipes the sweat off his brow and, upon spotting Taeyong on the kitchen counter and meeting the younger’s eyes, smiles a look of relief.

_ Ah _ . Taeyong’s breathing catches.  _ It’s that kind of day _ .

“Is it sweet?” Jaehyun asks, obviously referring to the peach in Taeyong’s hand, which the younger picked from the first basket that Mr. Han brought into the kitchen.

“I don’t know. I haven’t tried,” Taeyong answers in a beat. Mrs. Han had come by earlier and offered to slice up some of the fruit for him or place three into the blender with some shaved ice and milk, but he had declined, unsure at that time if he wanted to eat anything. Now, though, with Jaehyun in front of him and reaching up for one of the ceramic bowls that Mrs. Han kept in the cupboard, the muscles of his sweat-clad back flexing and undulating with every movement, Taeyong thinks he shouldn’t have passed up Mrs. Han’s smoothie offer.

In retrospect, Taeyong suspects that ‘catalyst’ doesn’t serve the aftershocks of that day in the garden much justice. Here, with Jaehyun fussing over the sink across him, the golden afternoon light from the window just above the elder burning a faint aureole around his head, Taeyong finds that he prefers the word ‘emergence’ more.

He watches as Jaehyun bends over in front of him to fill the bowl in his hand with peaches. Aside from being toned and sun-kissed from the times he spent basking under the heat in his spot near the pool, Jaehyun’s back—Taeyong realizes—is also a landscape of freckles. They’re only a few meters away, and if Taeyong were brave enough to extend his leg towards Jaehyun, he could map out and trace the faint brown and pink blotches on the skin of the elder’s back with his toes.

“I’m going to take some to your parents,” Jaehyun states, and Taeyong only nods though Jaehyun doesn’t turn to look at him, too busy with rinsing the peaches clean in the sink.

The water sprays hard out of the faucet, and Taeyong lets the sound dominate his senses as his eyes travel idly from the back of Jaehyun’s head, down to the sweat coating his nape, the square of his shoulders, the curve of his spine, and, finally, finally, the subtle swell of his buttocks.

The ‘emergence,’ Taeyong begins to suspect, has to do with how strongly he currently feels the urge to jump off from his place on the counter, cross the distance between him and Jaehyun, and hold what he sees before him—that is, curve an unapologetic hand around Jaehyun’s ass and feel the elder’s breathing hitch from surprise, freeze and stop with his motions. He imagines the peach in Jaehyun’s hand falling to the metal surface of the sink with a clunk, the running water filling in the silence that ensues right after. All of this, Taeyong wants to happen with his palm pressed against Jaehyun, the damp cloth of the elder’s red swimming trunks serving as the only barrier between his and Jaehyun’s skin.

He wonders how it would feel like, to touch the parts of Jaehyun’s body that the elder keeps hidden from others, to finally know what others don’t though they had been dying to. Taeyong muses: if he were to ask, would Jaehyun let Taeyong touch him? Would Jaehyun—after Taeyong asks in a whisper  _ “Can I touch you? Would you let me touch you?” _ —grab Taeyong’s hand, place it over himself, and ease the worry perched on the younger’s brow by saying, “That’s why I offered to do things for you in the first place: in the hope that, someday, you would ask me this.”

Without meaning to, Taeyong punctures the skin of the peach in his hand, and he looks at it, stares at how the fruit seems to cower in his palm and at how his fingernail buried itself just slightly in the middle of it. Then, looking from Jaehyun’s figure then back to the fruit, Taeyong thinks:  _ It’s blushing. This is Jaehyun, and he is blushing.  _ Against his better judgment, Taeyong digs his index finger deeper into the spot it already punctured. The peach is round, soft, fuzzy, and pliant in his hand, and as soon as some of its juice oozes from where Taeyong is pushing his finger, Taeyong retracts the pressure and holds his breath in his throat for the nth time this afternoon.

He chases away the image that flickered across his mind, the fruit bleeding in his hand ceaselessly until it eventually stains and makes his palm sticky with juice, the feel and smell of it against his skin saccharine and overwhelming. Chagrined by what he saw—more accurately, imagined—Taeyong brings the peach to his mouth and finally sinks his teeth into it without a care for the messy way the fruit’s juices dribble from the edges of his mouth and down his jaw.

Just then, Jaehyun turns to face him. “I hope they’re ripe enough—”

For a moment or two, everything stills, with Taeyong’s gaze intent on holding Jaehyun’s.

_ This one is _ , Taeyong wants to say, but he doesn’t, physically can’t with the fruit bleeding sweetness in his mouth. He doesn’t know why he does it but, feeling his saliva mix in with the juices in his mouth, he lets his jaw slacken a little bit, only to snap it back up to take another crisp bite off the peach, his mouth squelching and teeth clacking around and against the sorry fruit.

Across him, Jaehyun only swallows, his lips thinning into a straight line and Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Neither of them blinks nor looks away.

Until, as if awakening from a spell, Jaehyun breaks out into a quiet laugh. “You should’ve sliced it. You’re making a mess,” he says. He sets the bowl he was holding on to the counter where Taeyong is sitting and reaches for his shirt which he had draped over one of the baskets filled with peaches.

Then, with his shirt finally in his hand, Jaehyun makes his way over to Taeyong, but even before he could reach out to wipe Taeyong’s face clean, the younger jumps off the counter and disappears up the staircase and into his room, his feet loud against the steps and the wooden flooring upstairs.

With his back against the closed door, Taeyong finishes the abused peach in his hand and tries his best to clear his mind of the thoughts he had earlier, the fast-paced thrumming against his chest deafening in the relative silence.

* * *

What do you want? _ The piddling passerby asks himself as he hugs his knees close to his chest. On the shore, the wind blows cold against his damp clothes.  _ Do you  _ want _ ?

_ A conversation with the self: _

I want for him, the God of Stone, to wake.

Why?

So he can teach me how to be like himself: stone first, fluid the next.

What exactly do you mean? What does a trifling fisherman like you need so desperately to deserve a second with the sleeping God?

I am not fisher. Nor a man, I think. Not the way the world knows.

Then what do you—not a fisher nor a man—need?

For him, the God of Stone, to wake.

* * *

“Is there anything you want?” his mom asks. He shakes his head, leaning away when he feels her hand reach out to touch his forehead. It is one of those rare moments where his mom doesn’t have a cigarette dangling in between her lips; Taeyong doesn’t usually mind the smoke, but he feels mildly grateful there isn’t any blowing over his face and dehumidifying his already parched throat as of the moment.

“Porridge? Juice? Fruit? Just tell me, sweetheart,” his mom continues, pursing her small lips after removing her hand from Taeyong’s forehead. “You and Jaehyun really shouldn’t have gone out yesterday. That shower caught even Mr. Han off-guard. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” Taeyong croaks out almost immediately. Aside from the dizziness which strapped him to bed and had been the reason he chose to sleep more instead of go down for breakfast earlier, he is indeed okay. Then, acknowledging his mom mentioned yesterday, when he and Jaehyun came home from town drenched from head to toe, he lifts the blanket he had around his waist and covers his head with it as he says, “And we didn’t have any way of knowing it was going to rain.”

Although he and Jaehyun were already biking home before the rain plummeted to the ground and all that stood in its way yesterday, they weren’t fast enough to go home unscathed: in his rush, Taeyong had scraped his leg against his bicycle’s pedals, while Jaehyun had another one of his books soaked from cover-to-cover. It was the first heavy rainfall of the summer, and Taeyong knew that it was only a prelude to the typhoons of the incoming month. 

_ If only I took Jaehyun through the secret forest track _ , he finds himself thinking now, only to immediately dismiss the idea as absurd.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

Then, his bed shifts. But before he could lower his blanket down to see where his mom was going, he finds her turning from where she definitely peeked into Jaehyun’s room.

“Well, Jaehyun’s knocked out too. But at least he went down for breakfast. Unlike  _ you _ , young man.” Mrs. Lee crosses the room, her knee-length skirt swishing gracefully with every step. When she reaches the door where she came in unannounced a few minutes earlier to rouse Taeyong from sleep, she places one hand on her waist and the other on her forehead and sighs. “I’m going to send up Mrs. Han with your meal and some medicine later. Give some to Jaehyun if he needs it.”

Taeyong nods from his bed, ready to roll to his side and resume his interrupted slumber, but before he could do just so, his mom speaks up again.

“And Taeyong, if you need anything. If you  _ want _ anything, just tell me or Mrs. Han,” she says, and with that she steps out of the room and clacks her moccasins down the stairs.

_ I know _ . Taeyong sighs. Once he’s sure his mother is out of earshot, he mutters to himself, echoes the question he’s been repeatedly asked today, “What do you want?”

The word sits strangely on his tongue. Regardless of the many times he’s encountered it both in fiction and in the far-from-fictitious lives of others, ‘ _ want _ ,’ he finds, is still an unfamiliar word—or, more accurately, sensation. He tries to recall a specific moment in his life where he consciously wanted something, yearned for something so much that the wishing had grown into a second nature, a second voice that goes against his voice of reason. Food, clothes, books, companionship—these were things that he needed rather than desired, essential things made seemingly insignificant because they were given to him even when he didn’t outright ask for them.

Taeyong only recalls one incident. Sighing, he turns so that he’s once again lying on his back on the bed.

From the glass sliding door which leads to the balcony across him, Taeyong can see the sky beginning to darken again as it had yesterday. If the gray clouds are being honest, it wouldn’t take long before the rain falls.

Two incidents. Taeyong closes his eyes, willing himself not to think about yesterday, when Jaehyun agreed to go to town with him for the third time since his arrival nearly a month ago. He fails miserably, bleary mind whisking his consciousness to scenes he would very much rather leave untouched:

‘Soaked’ was an understatement for how they showed up at the driveway with their bikes in tow. Mr. Han ran to them immediately with a big umbrella, almost as if he had expected them before they arrived; he then urged them to go inside as he took their muddied bikes away and gently prodded Jaehyun before leaving. “She’s waiting in the living room,” he said.

Taeyong and Jaehyun looked at each other. Until Jaehyun, with a boyish laugh that echoed the one he had let go of when they were pedaling home, pushed Taeyong’s shoulder and rushed past him and into the house while shouting, “Last one to his room is the next vile thing you can think of!”

_ “ _ You got a head-start, no fair! _ ”  _ Taeyong wanted to say, but he only ran after the elder with a muted laugh, his steps sloshing against the marble tiles of the foyer and pounding dully against the wood of the stairs.

Instead of staying in his room, Taeyong headed straight to Jaehyun’s side with the intention of using the bathroom to rinse his feet and slippers of mud.

Too preoccupied with looking for a dry shirt from his dresser, Jaehyun only nodded when Taeyong passed by. But, after a moment, when the sounds of the faucet turning on and the water coming out broke the silence, he spoke, “So what vile thing are you?”

The mud stuck in between Taeyong’s toes was stubborn, so much so that Taeyong could only answer after he’d thoroughly cleaned his feet and no longer needed to be bent over his toes. “A knight,” he said as he turned the faucet off, the handle squeaking in his grip as he rotated it, and Jaehyun laughed.

“Should I take that as a sign that you think I shouldn’t go down and see her?” was Jaehyun’s reply.

“It’s your call,” Taeyong said. He moved to check his reflection in the mirror ledged on top of the sink. Then, he worked to brush the dirt off his damp hair and splash a few handfuls of water to clean his face. “I just think pretending to be easily whisked away when one really has no intention to be so is a vile thing.”

Jaehyun hummed.

When Taeyong finished, he moved to walk out of the bathroom, but he found himself glued to the doorway when Jaehyun, who had his back faced to him, started to strip his wet shirt off.

Taeyong stared—at the muscles of Jaehyun’s back, which stirred alive with every movement that the elder’s hands and arms made to tug the shirt off his torso; at the water that ran in rivulets down the freckled skin of his toned back, the shy curve of his spine, and the shallow dimples that rested just above his waist. Taeyong continued to stare as Jaehyun put on a dry shirt, turned around, and looked at him.

“You can use it now,” Taeyong managed to say without stammering, one hand fisting around his own drenched shirt. He stood still as Jaehyun smiled and walked towards him.

“Change out of your shirt. You’ll get a cold,” the elder said.

Taeyong stepped aside to let Jaehyun into the bathroom. “Colds don’t work that way, you know,” he quipped, though his voice lacked the playful tone he had wanted to come with the statement. 

Turning the faucet off abruptly to stare at the younger, Jaehyun scoffed in mock-annoyance. “Stop being smart for once and listen to older people.”

“Right.” Taeyong bowed his head, suddenly aware of the small pool of water around his feet that dried into dark blotches against the mahogany flooring of Jaehyun’s room. He moved away from the bathroom but, instead of going to his side to change as he had been told, he lingered over Jaehyun’s desk.

Disregarding the absence of a balcony and the presence of a bathroom, Jaehyun’s room was identical with Taeyong’s. Both had the same light-brown mahogany flooring that creaked in certain spots, as well as subdued white walls and dark-green French windows. Judging from the lack of dust on the table and around the room, Jaehyun’s windows were most probably always closed, which worked in the elder’s favor as it meant he didn’t have to worry about his papers being blown away by the wind.

Taeyong let his eyes wander over the passel of papers and books ornamenting Jaehyun’s desk. He found himself amused by the half-emptied mug of coffee sitting near the desk lamp, but what caught his eye the most was a matchbox left ajar on the foot of the lamp. Without much thinking, he picked it up, slid it open, and, after a pause, marveled at the peculiarity of what was inside: a dead beetle.

“Snooping around?” came Jaehyun’s voice.

Taeyong stiffened. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine.” Jaehyun walked over to him, one hand over the towel he was wiping roughly over his head. Although Taeyong knew Jaehyun only washed his face and feet, the elder looked like he came fresh from the shower and even smelled like it too. “Found anything interesting?”

After a pause, Taeyong said, “Do you know you have a beetle inside your matchbox instead of actual matches?” He only allowed his shoulders to slacken once he spotted the small smile that spread across Jaehyun’s face.

“I collect them sometimes. Other insects and bugs too,” Jaehyun said as he took the matchbox gingerly from Taeyong’s hands. He looked into the box for a little while and grinned—his dimples digging their temporary places on the soft-looking skin of his cheeks—before placing it into the desk drawer. 

“I see,” Taeyong said dumbly. He couldn’t quite comprehend how a historian like Jaehyun was also interested in insects. What were the odds? And, excluding this, were there other things he didn’t know about Jaehyun? Taeyong mused as he ignored the other question that was also on his mind, the one specifically about how it would feel to touch his hand against Jaehyun’s face.

“And I see you haven’t changed out of your shirt,” Jaehyun said. Then, without warning, he reached over to touch Taeyong’s neck, cold hand touching warm skin. “No fever. But, still, change.”

Unable to say anything back, Taeyong just nodded as he let the elder push him towards his room, where he finally did as he was told to do and changed into a dry shirt.

Jaehyun only emerged from his room after Taeyong finished changing, and a faint whiff of perfume was the only thing that Taeyong caught when the elder passed him by and headed downstairs without a word—downstairs where Taeyong knew Junhee waited.

Now, while lying in bed, Taeyong wonders who Jaehyun chose to be yesterday: the knight, the lady, or the passerby? He finds that he  _ wants _ to know: how Junhee looked when Jaehyun came down to meet her, how Jaehyun probably put a hand on her petite waist as he was wont to do whenever Junhee clung too close to him, how the two of them left the house once the rain stopped pouring, what they did and what they said to each other that took so long, took long enough for Jaehyun to come back home only after Taeyong had finished writing in his journal for the night.

With an arm over his eyes, Taeyong pictures grass by the riverside. Much like the illustration in the poetry book he bought, the grass he conjures is bluish against the fast-setting sun, especially around the spot where an oak tree stands tall and brings shade over a young pair of lovers locked in an embrace against its roots.

The male lover laughs, and Taeyong hears Jaehyun in his voice. Suddenly, he sees the idyllic picture of Junhee latched on to Jaehyun under the shade of an oak tree, her arms around the elder’s waist and her head sighing against the rise and fall of the elder’s chest. To their left, the river courses smoothly, but not as smoothly as the way Jaehyun slips a hand over Junhee’s stomach and drowns out her yelp with an open-mouthed kiss.

Taeyong feels himself grow warmer. He kicks off his blanket and turns in his bed in an attempt to stave off the heat and distract himself. But, against his will, the images continue to pour into the seemingly open bowl of his consciousness.

With one swift motion, Jaehyun flips Junhee so that she could be under him, caging her with his arms on each side of her head. 

Taeyong squeezes his eyes shut. He feels his throat tightening and, within a moment, he breathes out a gasp from the way Jaehyun slides a hand past Junhee’s shirt—also simultaneously Taeyong’s shirt—the touch feather-light yet heavy with intent. And suddenly Taeyong sees himself by the riverside, the grass prickling under him and against his back as Jaehyun pushes and towers over him. The elder looks at him hungrily, gaze far from dazed, pupils dilating at the sight of Taeyong’s skin as more is revealed when the younger’s shirt is lifted further up until it rests in folds on an unmarred collarbone.

Without warning, Jaehyun’s head dips low, and Taeyong’s hips involuntarily buckle forwards as soon as the elder’s wet tongue laps and wraps around a nipple. Electricity spreads and runs from Taeyong’s chest down to his groin like wildfire, toes curling as he tries his best not to squirm under Jaehyun’s ministrations. He fails as soon as Jaehyun brings one hand up to tug and pinch at his other nipple, and another hand to caress and run down his exposed chest, the motion slow and leaving goosebumps in its wake. It only stops once it reaches Taeyong’s waist, where Jaehyun thumbs at a hipbone and, soon enough, at the waistband of Taeyong’s sweatpants.

With eyes still squeezed shut, Taeyong nods. He struggles to bite down a moan when he feels his pants being pulled down along with his underwear, clothes chafing lightly against the skin of his thighs where Jaehyun leaves them hooked around.

He is given only a few seconds to breathe, but the little respite he receives is rendered useless as soon as he feels a wet heat wrap around his half-hard cock. The sensation, if anything, is a punch to the gut, and Taeyong keens and finally chokes out a moan. “Jaehyun,” he cries, but he bites the insides of his cheeks and once again silences himself, opting to focus on the slow and delicious drag of Jaehyun’s tongue over his hardening length. He feels himself getting dizzy, the heat from Jaehyun’s mouth and from his own fever suddenly overwhelming.

With as much strength as his feverish mind and body could muster, Taeyong sits up, kneels, and then flips the elder so that Jaehyun ends up on all fours before him. He has never done this before, but he’s read a lot about it, has fantasized enough about it, and for Taeyong, that is enough. It only hits him now with a newfound clarity that what had been brewing within him for the past month had been desire for Jaehyun. And so, with his hand pulling on to the hair at the back of the elder’s head, Taeyong pushes inside Jaehyun and takes him right then and there.

He watches as the muscles on Jaehyun’s back twitch and come alive as he saw them do so just yesterday, when he had seen Jaehyun change out of a wet shirt.

Before him, Jaehyun only whines. “Don’t stop,” he moans. “You’re cruel if you stop.” And Taeyong finds himself repeating the same words in his head:  _ Don’t stop. You’re cruel if you stop. Don’t stop. Don’t. _

With a few more thrusts and angled flicks of the wrist, Taeyong finally spills into his own hand with a muted moan, his head arching upwards and toes curling against bent knees as his whole body shivered. When he comes back to himself after collapsing in bed, Jaehyun is nowhere near him—the images involving the riverside gone and banished as nothing but fictitious creations of a feverish mind.

Taeyong blinks.

_ Water _ , he realizes as the sweat from his forehead drips down to his cheeks. He wants water.

As soon as his breathing calms down to normal, Taeyong fixes and cleans himself with tissues. He makes sure he’s presentable before getting up to head towards the bathroom in Jaehyun’s side, where he plans to drink water out of the tap. But when he reaches the doorway to Jaehyun’s room, he stops dead in his tracks, his hands which held the tissues coming around immediately to hide behind his back.

Jaehyun, who was supposed to be knocked out in his bed as Mrs. Lee said he was earlier, is now awake and hunched over his desk. 

Panic bubbles in Taeyong’s gut, but he calms down when he takes in more of Jaehyun’s appearance. From the looks of it, it seems to him that Jaehyun hasn’t been awake for long. Although the elder was already poring over his notes, his hair was still uncombed and tousled from sleep and he had his pair of thin, black-rimmed reading glasses on, which Taeyong only ever saw him use during breakfasts or in the wee hours of morning while huddled over his desk.

Sensing his presence, Jaehyun turns to look at his direction, and he nods when he meets Taeyong’s gaze.

Taeyong only returns the acknowledgement before bowing his head and walking towards the bathroom with quiet steps, head running a million scenarios of him apologizing to Jaehyun for what the elder might have heard. In the end, he decides against it—apologizing, that is. There is just no way that Jaehyun saw him, not from his place at the desk, at least. And if he did hear him, the elder didn’t give any indication or any action worth suspicion.  _ No _ , Taeyong tells himself.  _ There’s no need to bring it up unless he does. _

Turning the faucet on with haste, Taeyong washes his face. He scrubs harshly at his cheeks with soap, as if doing so would wash away the feeling of dirt that had started to creep up his skin. He couldn’t help it. He shouldn’t have done what he did. He badly wishes Jaehyun were asleep. He wishes  _ he _ had stayed asleep instead.

With water cupped in his clean palms, Taeyong drinks from the tap. This time, with the intention of dousing the shame he felt burning in the pits of his stomach.

* * *

_ After days of waiting, the God of Stone finally wakes.  _

_ “Who guarded me as I slept?” he bellows, the basalt columns crowding the coast quaking as he lifts himself from the ground. _

_ The piddling passerby scrambles to his feet. He bows as he says, “I did.” _

_ The God of Stone doesn’t blink, only stares at him with glowing eyes. “What is it that you want in return?” _

This is it _ , the passerby realizes.  _ The moment I’ve been waiting for.

_ “I can tell you anything you want to know. Mind only this—the price of truth stays the same,” the God of Stone offers, his long whiskers coming alive and undulating with the wind, his voice thundering louder than the waves crashing against the shore. “Speak your want, passerby, and you shall know.” _

_ But the piddling passerby doesn’t answer, not yet. He thought he had already paid the price for truth: the endless hours spent waiting, what were they for? _

_ “I sense uncertainty,” the God of Stone roars, impatient to go back to his slumber. “Answer me, would you rather live in ignorance or turn to stone?” _

Yesterday was a premonition, and earlier was its fruition. Shame is strong and all-encompassing; I’d rather live in ignorance than turn to stone.

* * *

“Sorry,” Jaehyun says as he closes the palm-sized notebook in his hand. Behind the reading glasses perched high on the bridge of his nose are faint shadows that circle around his eyes which, when paired with the way his hair is sticking up in a multitude of directions, only suggest a weariness, one that Jaehyun seems to be intent on concealing by means of smiling more than usual. “Not that I couldn’t be bothered to go to the library for this—I will, later, actually. It’s just...” he trails, pausing to bite his bottom lip and look to the side as if about to reveal a secret.

Taeyong blinks. He’s never seen the elder act so self-consciously before. But, then again, was the hesitance to ask earlier and to continue what he’s still in the middle of saying now really a sign of self-consciousness? Probably not. If anything, Taeyong thinks, he should be the one exhibiting cautiousness and not the elder, what with the events—which Taeyong still isn’t sure Jaehyun is privy to—that took place barely a week ago.

Jaehyun finishes, pushing his hair back as he does so, “So hot. Has Jeonseol-ri always been this hot during the summer?”

_ Weather _ , Taeyong tells himself. They’re talking about the weather now.

“It definitely has, but one gets used to it.” Taeyong nods, bowing his head to stare at the yellowed keys of the grand piano in front of him. He was in the middle of playing a piece he had just recently finished transcribing when the elder came into the otherwise deserted living room.

By now, with much thanks to his father’s unwavering support and attention, Taeyong considers himself used to having people watch him play the piano. But he paused his playing as soon as he saw the question in the elder’s eyes, which eventually transpired into an inquiry about one of Jeju-do’s oldest creation myths—a subject that was germane to the elder’s dissertation on East-Asian narratives.

Jaehyun hums. He opens his notebook again and reads from it. “So Jeju-do, which was then the Kingdom of Tamna, began as soon as the three gods Go, Yang, and Bu emerged from three holes in the ground.” 

“Right,” Taeyong confirms, nodding once again. He briefly wonders if Jaehyun would have still asked him for the story if his parents weren’t out. It’s not that he doesn’t trust himself with them; he knows these stories like he knows the back of his own hands or the humming of the cicadas in Jeonseol-ri that grows significantly louder in late July. He just couldn’t recall if any of his parents’ previous summer guests ever consulted him regarding such matters. In fact, he thinks none of them saw him as someone capable of holding academic conversations until Jaehyun.

“I guess Hanbin was right.” Jaehyun laughs. “I asked him first. Just wasn’t so sure I could trust a seven-year-old.”

Taeyong crosses his arms. He thinks if the piano stool he’s currently sitting on had a backrest, he would’ve let his head fall back and rest against it. “So you came to me to prove if you could.”

“ _ That _ , and also because I wanted to hear your opinion,” Jaehyun says, tapping the notebook in his hand lightly against his lap. “The three gods. They kind of remind me of Julius Caesar, what do you think?” he quizzes.

“How so?” Taeyong cocks an eyebrow, partly for the uncertainty he feels regarding the elder’s comparison, but mostly for the image of Jaehyun talking to Mr. and Mrs. Han’s son, Hanbin.

“Don’t get me wrong. They clearly weren’t imperialists, but ‘ _ Veni, vidi, vici’ _ ?” Jaehyun chuckles softly, lips curling into that wry smile Taeyong only saw whenever he deemed the elder was truly amused by or interested in something. “‘ _ I came, I saw, I conquered. _ ’”

“The three gods came, and Tamna was theirs,” Taeyong mutters, and he witnesses Jaehyun’s smile turn into a full grin, almost as if the elder was pleased that Taeyong understood his reference.

A moment passes during which Jaehyun just snickers and Taeyong stares, neither of them aware of the pause.

Then, with a gentle pat on Taeyong’s back, Jaehyun says, “You got it, as expected.” Another pause, then a cough. “Anyway, thanks for your time. Sorry again for interrupting piano practice.” 

“It’s alright,” Taeyong says, shoulders lifting as he straightens his back and pushes down the thought of rubbing the spot Jaehyun just patted.

Without another word, Jaehyun turns around and walks away, seemingly to return to Mr. Lee’s study. But, as if forgetting something, he whips back around and returns to Taeyong’s side by the grand piano only to say, the same wry smile on his face albeit fainter, “Hey, can I hear you play?”

“I mean, I  _ can  _ hear you from the study,” Jaehyun continues before Taeyong could answer, one hand coming up to rub at his nape. “I guess what I really want to ask is if I can watch you play.”

_Oh._ _Was it perhaps one of those days? _Taeyong shakes his head. “Of course. I don’t mind.” And with Jaehyun leaning against the piano and facing him sideways, he places his hands back on the keys and starts to play.

Music fills the room in an instant. It resounds gentle and slow as the rhythmic ebb and flow of waves against the shore on a perfect day, the freefall dwindling of leaves in autumn, and the quiet sighs that escape Taeyong’s mouth as his shoulders and wrists lift and bend featly over the keys. 

In an instant, too, does Jaehyun closes his eyes, head tilting to one side almost involuntarily, as if conquered by the music, by Taeyong’s rendition of the widely known Debussy piece.

It’s a song Taeyong has listened to countless of times before but has never played in front of anyone until Jaehyun. He wonders if the elder knows its history: how it diverges from Debussy’s style at the time that it was written and how its musical simplicity means even more in light of the fact that it was named after a poem by the French poet Leconte de Lisle.

_ Do you know? How much do you know?  _ Taeyong wishes to say, catching the way Jaehyun stares at him from the periphery of his vision. But he doesn’t tear his eyes from the piano keys, at least not yet. Instead, he closes them, opting to lose himself in his playing. He doesn’t do this often, especially when he’s in front of an audience, so he’s surprised when his mind clears only to recall lines from the poem the song inspires:  _ do not say no, cruel maiden. Do not say yes. Better to know the long lasting gaze of your eyes and your rosy lips. _

When Taeyong opens his eyes and looks to his side as he finishes the song with not so much of a flourish but a sigh, Jaehyun meets his gaze.

_ Oh, my bel. _

Jaehyun claps, loud and steady, nodding as he does so. And Taeyong allows himself to smile weakly.

“I’ve never heard ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair’ played so delicately,” Jaehyun says in between claps, and Taeyong stills.

_ So, he knows. But how much? How deeply? _

“Was that your own rendition?” Jaehyun asks, and when Taeyong only nods he adds, “You’re quite amazing, Taeyong. How come you’re not  _ out  _ there?”

With the gentle push of his fingers, Taeyong closes the piano’s fallboard. He sucks in a huge amount of air without thinking, feeling a sensation bubble in his stomach that he chooses to ignore. “Out there?” he prompts, laughing inwardly.

“Out there,” Jaehyun reiterates, before clearing his throat and continuing, his voice turning quiet all of a sudden, “I didn’t mean to pry, but you once left a notebook open on your desk.”

“Oh.” Taeyong nods, more as an acknowledgment of Jaehyun’s statement than a response.

Seeing the younger’s nod as a sign for him to continue, Jaehyun says, “I didn’t read through it, don’t worry. I just happened to see some lines when I went to your desk for your father’s stapler. You write fiction?”

_ So he knows that much _ . Taeyong feels his stomach sinks. Sometime during Jaehyun’s explanation, his right hand managed to make its way to his mouth, and now, without consciously meaning to, Taeyong chips at the ends of his thumb with his teeth. “It’s not really fiction...” he trails, bowing his head to avoid Jaehyun’s stare which seems to say,  _ ‘You write about speaking to a God yet tell me it’s not fiction?’ _

“Still, it’s pretty well-written. What I got a glimpse of, at least,” Jaehyun reassures him. “Your dad told me you got into a literature program in the States but turned it down a week before the first semester.”

_ That much. He knows that much.  _ Taeyong bites his lips this time, tries his best to will away the image of his dad waiting for him at the airport with open arms and a lopsided grin that beamed brighter than the sign meters above his head which glowed ‘Domestic Arrivals’ in white neon lights. He tries his best not to scoff at himself.  _ “Turned it down?” I was in no position to turn anything down. _

“Yes,” he manages to say. When he continues after a brief pause, he folds his hands on his lap and tries to laugh off the rising sensation in his chest, “Should I be worried about how he told you? I don’t think it’s a particularly fond memory. For my father, at least.”

“Is it the opposite then for you?” Jaehyun asks after a beat, body having long ago abandoned its relaxed position against the grand piano. The notebook in his hand earlier has disappeared into a pocket of his shorts, hands preoccupied instead with fixing his shirt collar.

The shirt, Taeyong only realizes now, is the same one that the elder wore the first time he set foot in the Lee residence: the pale blue, billowy top with its first three buttons undone—once an emblem of ease for Taeyong, turned something that oppresses.

“Yes. It is,” Taeyong says flatly. He feels indignation course through him and thinks:  _ this must be exactly how Pharnaces II of Pontus felt when Julius Caesar defeated him at the Battle of Zela. _

Jaehyun hums, and Taeyong briefly wonders if it would be rude to stand up and excuse himself to his room without saying a word. An eternity passes before Jaehyun speaks again.

“I wouldn’t worry then. Besides, smart kid like you? Could probably go to places without going to university. It doesn’t matter what your father thinks, though I’m sure there wasn’t any hint of disappointment when he told me about it,” the elder says, and it takes everything for Taeyong not to let out the broken sound threatening to spill from his throat.

He doesn’t speak anymore, finds himself unable to. He only listens with his eyes meeting yet at the same time looking past Jaehyun’s eyes when the elder speaks up again.

“Speaking of going to places, want to come to the library with me?” Jaehyun offers, one hand coming up to push his reading glasses up and into his hair. “I don’t know why I haven’t had a library tour from you when you’re probably the one who knows it best.”

“I offered more than once,” Taeyong answers, voice still devoid of color. 

“And this is me making up for it,” comes Jaehyun’s rebuttal. The elder laughs, and Taeyong thinks this is the warmest he’s seen the elder yet. “Fine. You have every right to decide later, but I’ll be waiting.”

When Jaehyun waves him off and turns around to finally return to Mr. Lee’s study, Taeyong finds himself slumping against the grand piano, cheek resting on the sleek, black fallboard and staining its polished surface with sweat. He watches quietly as Jaehyun walks away, watches as the elder’s pale blue shirt billows in the wind of his motions.

After the elder disappears to a corner, Taeyong hazards a thought, head twisting so that his forehead rests against the piano:  _ maybe it started the day Jaehyun came to Jeonseol-ri _ .

Perhaps, like the three gods Go, Yang, and Bu—whose arrivals gave rise to the Kingdom of Tamna—everything began the moment Jaehyun stepped foot onto the stone floors of the Lee Summerhouse driveway.

Perhaps, like Julius Caesar, Jaehyun also wrote ‘ _ Veni, vidi, vici _ ’ in the first letter he sent to his family upon arriving in Jeonseol-ri.

With such thoughts in mind, Taeyong stands up from his seat on the piano stool.

And when his breathing eventually evens out enough for him to exhale without shivering, he holds his chin high and heads towards his father’s study.

* * *

_ “If you wish to know what you want to know, come to me,” the God of Stone bellows, eyes glowing and scaled figure floating distinctly above the stormy waves of the sea. “Be rid of uncertainty and come to me, passerby. Cross the shore and come to the sea.” _

_ And the piddling passerby, without another word or doubt, obliges and toes the line between the shore and the sea. _


	2. The Magpie Bridge I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those who are wondering, yes, this fic will have a different ending from the original cmbyn. happy reading!

The door to his father’s office opens with a sylvan creak.

Inside, he finds Jaehyun leaning forwards with both elbows propped onto the sill of the single, opened French window from where light filters into the room as if through a sieve, on the other side of which it emerges softened and diffused.

“The library closes in an hour,” Taeyong begins, toeing the door close behind him with a click. He watches as Jaehyun continues to tip his shoulders further out of the window, one arm stretching to reach for something below the window’s height. From this angle, Taeyong observes, Jaehyun’s jaw is strong—almost as if cut from stone—and it is softened only when the elder breaks out into a laugh, the source of which Taeyong pinpoints as whatever it is that lies beyond the window.

Pacing towards the elder, Taeyong continues, “But we can still make it in time for a brief tour; there’s not much to see, anyway. I’m sure you know that by now.” He stops just a few steps shy away from standing right beside Jaehyun.

Finally noticing Taeyong’s presence, Jaehyun turns briefly to face the younger, only to turn his attention back outside the window and say, “Sorry, kid. Gotta go. Let’s play again next time?”

From his spot, Taeyong sees the crown of brown hair ruffling outside the window where, within a moment, Hanbin emerges with his small face and narrow shoulders.

“We’ll keep the score for next time?” Hanbin asks, eyeing the hand he has raised and balancing two black beetles on a twig.

“Yes. Next time. Bring a thicker twig,” comes Jaehyun’s reply, which earns the elder a pleased laugh from Hanbin, who then sprints away after collecting his things.

As soon as Hanbin’s steps are out of earshot, Taeyong says, “Never knew you played with the kid.” He doesn’t move from his spot, not even when Jaehyun shifts from his repository position on the windowsill to stand up to his full height and face him.

Jaehyun is only taller than he is by a few inches, but the elder’s broad shoulders manage to amplify the differences between their physiques. It’s as if he’s carried more than he could at some point in his life, Taeyong has found himself thinking once. Jaehyun’s shoulders are that of experience, of nights spent huddled over a desk and poring over notes, of farmhands and afternoons spent on the field, of Atlas carrying the world.

“Shouldn’t you know best?” Jaehyun says, cocking a wry smile as he rakes fingers through his fringe. “I mean, I did race you downtown on our bikes that one time. Doesn’t that count as play?”

Taeyong purses his lips. The hands on either side of his body are itching to hold on to something. Eventually they settle for a copy of Voltaire’s  _ Candide _ , which Taeyong picks up from his father’s desk and starts mindlessly flipping through. “It’s hardly  _ just _ play when losing isn’t an option,” he says in return, at which Jaehyun snickers. Taeyong only hopes it’s at the ease with which he reminded the elder about his loss that day they raced each other downtown, and not at how hard he’s trying to read from one of his father’s books out of restlessness.

Silence. Another one of those brief failures of words that Jaehyun rectifies.

“Hey, about that library tour,” Jaehyun says to Taeyong, who stops flipping through the book in his hand to listen. “Mind if we move it for next time?”

There’s no hesitation in his words. Clearly, it’s something he has decided on even before his time with Hanbin was interrupted, Taeyong thinks.

“Next time,” he echoes, testing the selfsame words that Jaehyun had also thrown towards Hanbin earlier. Then, closing the book in his hand and putting it back down to its place on his father’s desk, he says with a slight shake of the head, “Sure. I don’t mind.”

“Great. Thanks.” Jaehyun nods. The hand he places on Taeyong’s shoulder before he motions for the door is firm yet fleeting. “I’ll see you around.”

Later the same afternoon, in town, as he steps out of the bookstore after running another one of his father’s errands, Taeyong spots Jaehyun walking into the library with Junhee in tow. As if on cue, his mind brings him back to the fantasy he let himself visualize that one, feverish afternoon in his room. All of a sudden, from the cobblestoned pavement of the town plaza, he’s ferried off to his room and to his bed where, sitting up as though awakening from a wreckage, he sees Jaehyun and Junhee lying opposite him on a spread of grass with their limbs locked in a loose embrace and hints of their conversation drifting up into the air like grains of sand.

Here, on Taeyong’s island of a bed, Jaehyun and Junhee’s presence remains within reach for the stretch of an arm, yet also remote enough for that eager arm to cease all attempts in closing distance.

It seems unthinkable to Taeyong now, how, at one point in his life, he actually allowed himself to want them both: Jaehyun and Junhee, with their brown eyes, their straight shoulders, their dark hair that coruscates a deceptive honey brown under the sun, their nonchalance, and their shared obliviousness to the attentions of a passerby.

He had, without a doubt, long stopped harboring anything for Junhee. After all, an attraction founded on boredom only ever ends the same way it started: in boredom.

With Jaehyun, on the other hand, Taeyong wonders how long until a general lack of interest consumes him once again. It is, to him, a curiosity that only pales next to the question of what Jaehyun meant exactly by “next time.”

* * *

Next time, Taeyong discovers, doesn’t mean the next day.

It rains the next day. The sweeping kind of downpour that douses the warm, sun-drowned grounds of the island; clears roofs of dirt and fallen leaves; and pounds mercilessly against the walls and the closed windows of the Lee Summerhouse.

July has come and gone, and with its departure came August, who, so far, has brought two things to the people of Jeju-do: the sense of hope that comes at the beginning of every month and a wave of typhoons capable of eradicating—yet again—the numerous dreams of an endless summer that were born in June.

“Your hair’s gotten long again, my dear,” his mother says as she runs fingers behind his ear, flicking the strands of hair there as if wiping dust off a surface. “When was the last time you cut it? June?”

Taeyong shakes his head, urging his fringe to fall over his forehead where it rests just past his eyebrows. “I forget.”

They are lounging on the living room couch, enjoying the white-noise placidity brought on by the storm with coffee and stories. His parents are seated on opposite ends of the couch, making space for him as he lies with his head on his mother’s lap and his legs on his father’s thighs. It’s a common enough image and occurrence, which the family occasionally engages in regardless of whether or not there’s an audience. There usually isn’t; the Hans and even the visitors know when to leave the Lee parents alone with their only child.

Today, though, Jaehyun is present. With a turn of the head, Taeyong spies the elder on the armchair across, sitting as though trying his best to affect invisibility, head trained to the book on his lap and knees pressed together. With the power out and the rooms mostly dark except for the living room and its big glass windows, Taeyong assumes the elder had no choice but to be downstairs. The kitchen was certainly an option but it, too, was preoccupied already by the bickering Mr. and Mrs. Han and their son Hanbin.

“Jaehyun, care to share what you’re struggling to read over there?” Taeyong’s father asks, hand coming down to pat Taeyong’s feet. “We could use a story.”

“The tale of Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo, Professor,” Jaehyun says.

This catches Mrs. Lee’s attention. “Ah, the star-crossed lovers,” she says. It’s her favorite tale. One she’s spent nights and afternoons like today telling Taeyong about. “Let’s hear it.”

Jaehyun obliges with a nod. He flips to the very beginning of the book and reads.

It’s a tale Taeyong has heard and read countless of times before, and the story goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Jiknyeo who devoted herself to weaving fabric that was—according to both the locals of the kingdom and its outsiders—as beautiful as she was. As the daughter of the heavenly King, she was expected to someday be wed to a man of good worth. However, Jiknyeo didn’t want to do anything but weave clothes and blankets; she couldn’t find herself to care for the group of suitors that waited for her outside of the gates and grew in numbers with each passing day.

“Until one afternoon, while looking outside of my bedroom window, I saw him,” Jaehyun reads, voice calm amid the wistfulness of Jiknyeo’s narration. “On the green fields just across the Milky Way stood my handsome Gyeonwu. I knew, right then and there—as a duckling recognizes its mother the moment it opens its eyes for the first time—that he was the one.”

News of Jiknyeo’s attraction soon reached her father. And, delighted by the prospect of his daughter falling in love, the heavenly King allowed Jiknyeo to be married to Gyeonwu, the young herder who lived across the Milky Way.

Taeyong casts a glance at his father and then to Jaehyun, who reads on: “We fell in love. But the more we did, the less we became our old selves. I was drawn away from weaving while Gyeonwu was drawn away from his herd of cows and sheep. And, for everyone else but us, what we became was undesirable.”

As punishment for abandoning their work, the heavenly King, who had grown furious at his daughter and her husband, ordered Jiknyeo to come home, after which he destroyed the bridge that connected Heaven and Earth—the bridge that connected Jiknyeo to Gyeonwu.

“I threw myself onto my great father’s feet and begged to no avail. I was devastated, but my father was convinced that Gyeonwu was bad for me,” Jaehyun reads, voice suddenly subdued by the rain outside which steadily grows stronger. “It was only after I proved I could still weave that my father finally allowed me to meet my beloved again, but only once a year. I didn’t complain; it was enough that my hard work changed my father’s decision, which are so often final. I had worked hard to earn love, and so did Gyeonwu.”

As if sensing their efforts, it is said that a large parliament of magpies gathers to form a bridge between Heaven and Earth whenever it is time for the two lovers to meet. And, after each meeting, the rain would fall to grieve with the lovers as they begin their wait for the next year, their next time.

Jaehyun closes the book with a subtle clap, the copy suddenly looking thin and old in his hands.

“How lonely, to be always waiting until the next time.” Taeyong’s mother sighs. She motions for the half-used cigarette lying forlorn on the ashtray sitting on the coffee table, but stills when she remembers Taeyong’s head on her lap.

“How lovely, to have a next time to look forward to,” Taeyong’s father quips. Then, asks, “Which do you think it is, Jaehyun?”

Sitting up from where he was lying on his mother’s lap, Taeyong moves his legs and feet away from his father’s thighs and sets them on the ground. He straightens himself, fixes his hair, and pats down the creases on his shirt. When he looks up, he meets Jaehyun’s eyes, which have a glint to them that is only noticeable in the faint darkness of the living room.

Without breaking Taeyong’s gaze, Jaehyun answers, “It’s both.”

* * *

“So you’re telling me that this person asked you out, but then bailed the moment you said ‘yes’?” Doyoung asks, statement punctuated by the beeping of the product he swipes over the laser scanner. He places the purchased goods inside a paper bag, hands said bag to the lady in front of his counter with a practiced  _ ‘Thank you for shopping. Come again soon,’ _ then motions to flip the ‘Open’ sign hanging on the door entrance after the lady steps out.

“Closing so soon?” Taeyong asks. He doesn’t answer Doyoung’s last statement, all of a sudden far more interested in the fact that his friend is closing up shop in the middle of the afternoon.

Doyoung shakes his head. “Just so nobody can interrupt us while we’re having this conversation,” he says. “Anyway, this guy you’re talking about? Unbelievable.”

Taeyong lets out a laugh, legs swinging upwards as he jumps to perch himself on top of the cashier’s counter. He looks down to his feet to ignore Doyoung’s pointed stare as he says, “It’s not  _ some  _ guy. It’s my character. I’m writing a story, remember?” He conjures a leather notebook from his side and waves it in front of Doyoung’s face for good measure.

Doyoung stares, clearly unamused. He turns away to fix the numerous product displays stationed on the counter. “Well, no offense, but your character sounds like a cowardly, indecisive prick.”

“You might just be right.”

“You know I am.”

“I said  _ might _ , so you could still be wrong.”

Doyoung shoots him a sideways glance. “You also know there’s a special place in Dante’s universe for the cowardly and indecisive, right? You taught me that. The gates of hell, with its swarms of wasps and hornets and its floor of maggots and worms.”

Taeyong chuckles. How could he forget such a place exists? He plays with the thought in his head and asks: who deserves to go down the gates of hell? Himself or his character? Or is it both? Dante went down with Virgil, and so did Adam and Eve. Certainly, he thinks, companionship looks to be a requirement towards descent.

“So we’re talking about hell now?” Seulgi emerges from the aisle where the ice cream freezers are located. She walks up to Doyoung, hands him the sundae she picked out, and continues, “I heard maggots and worms.”

Doyoung tosses the sundae back to her without swiping it over the laser scanner. “You’re welcome.” He nods at Seulgi. “And yes. Some guy asked Taeyong out but bailed the moment Taeyong said yes.”

“Is this true?” Seulgi asks. “Taeyong, you’re into men? Since when?”

Taeyong stills, swinging legs coming to a rest against the counter. Then, with a soft laugh, he shakes his head. “Again, it’s a character I’m writing about. Not  _ some  _ guy,” he clarifies.

“Boring,” Seulgi remarks, sighing. She hauls herself up to sit on the counter next to Taeyong and uncaps the sundae in her hand. “And here I thought I was going to be finally entertained. Jeonseol-ri has disappointed me this summer. I’m leaving for Seoul in a few days.”

“Okay. The two of you, get off the counter,” Doyoung says as he walks towards the entrance and flips the sign hanging on it back to ‘Open.’ His shoulders visibly fall when Taeyong and Seulgi don’t do as he ordered.

“Well, at least I met Doyoung here. Thanks for everything,” Seulgi says, smiling as she raises the sundae towards Doyoung’s direction. “And, oh, I saw Junhee cry too when I passed her by the town library the other day. Definitely the highlight this summer.”

Taeyong sends her a questioning look, but before he could ask, Doyoung speaks up:

“She cried?”

“Yes. Heard she confessed to someone,” Seulgi says. She pauses to take in a spoonful of ice cream before continuing, “Good for her, though. At least she got it over with. Confessing is just another way of getting things done and over with when you think about it.”

From his seat beside Seulgi, Taeyong finds himself nodding.

Then, the entrance to the store opens with a chime as a customer comes inside.

“Get off the counter. Now,” Doyoung hisses, and Taeyong and Seulgi laugh but do as they’re told.

* * *

Jaehyun’s “next time” comes when it’s least expected.

Taeyong is standing in front of the bathroom mirror when it happens, one hand worrying a stainless razor over a foamed cheek and the other pushing down on to the edge of the sink for leverage as his body leans towards his reflection. He’s fully immersed in this newly-learned ritual of whittling age off his face when Jaehyun’s head appears unannounced at the doorway.

“Still up for the tour?” comes Jaehyun’s voice, and Taeyong jumps then visibly winces when the blade against his skin cuts deeper than intended.

“ _ Shit _ ,” he hisses through gritted teeth.  The cut is miniscule, but it stings and bleeds all the same. 

Taeyong motions for a towel, the razor in his hand dropping to the sink with a clatter. It’s the first time he’s cut himself while shaving, and the stark difference between this wound and all the other wounds he’s gotten from playing as a kid in the past doesn’t go unnoticed. Somehow  _ this _ , he notes in between dabbing the wound dry and ignoring how Jaehyun still stood staring by the doorway, hurts less, comes without the guilt and shame of children who’ve just broken their favorite toy.

“Water helps,” Jaehyun says suddenly, and before Taeyong can make sense of the elder’s movements from his periphery, he feels the towel removed from his grasp and hears the tap run open.

What follows is the touch of a damp cloth and of Jaehyun’s hand on his cheek.

“Hold this,” Jaehyun instructs as he grabs Taeyong’s wrist with his free hand and lets Taeyong’s fingers latch onto the cloth. “Press it down. That should stop it.”

“I got it,” Taeyong says, stepping and turning away. The cloth is cold and damp against his cheek, and so are the bathroom tiles beneath his feet. “Thanks.”

There’s a pause, during which Taeyong feels Jaehyun gaze at him through the mirror. He’s tempted to point it out: the staring. Tempted to trace the elder’s line-of-sight and meet Jaehyun’s eyes at the end of it, but he doesn’t. Nevermind the fact that he wonders how it would go, how Jaehyun would react once caught. Would he hold Taeyong’s gaze or would he simply look away?

Taeyong sighs, decides himself to be too preoccupied with the fresh wound on his cheek.

“So I’ll see you downstairs?” Jaehyun asks, and it’s only then that Taeyong spares a glance at him through the mirror.

What Taeyong finds at the end of Jaehyun’s line-of-sight are expectant eyes and an amicable smile—an impression of eagerness.

“Sure.” Taeyong nods. Bowing his head, he motions to pick the razor back up from the sink and runs it under the tap with the towel in his hand. “I’ll just finish up.”

“Of course.”

  
  


“I always see you carry that around,” Jaehyun begins.

They’re walking towards the library now .  He and Taeyong, with their bicycles held up and dragged along their sides. The plaza grounds are uncharacteristically hot at this time of the day, each step reminiscent of walking barefooted on the sand along the shore. But when Taeyong breathes in, it isn’t the briny smell of seawater that greets him; instead of the sea, he smells wet cobblestone drying under the sun and —if he allows himself—a faint whiff of Jaehyun’s aftershave. Lavender, he guesses. Lavender under the sun.

“ _ That _ notebook,” Jaehyun supplies when it seems as though Taeyong has no idea what he’s talking about, hand pointing at the black leather notebook inside the younger’s bike basket. “You’re always lugging it around.”

“Lugging it around,” Taeyong repeats, more to himself than to the other. He lets his gaze follow a senile-looking lady who passes them with multiple bags of groceries in hand, notes the different shades of vegetable green threatening to spill from their containment. “You say that like it’s heavy.”

The lady disappears into a corner, prompting Taeyong to face Jaehyun — who trails behind him — once again.

“Is it not?” Jaehyun says. “I kept a journal when I was your age. I know how much emotional baggage a few pages can carry.”

“It’s not a journal.” Taeyong kicks at a loose chunk of stone on the path. They stop to haul their bicycles close to the wall and wait as a delivery truck passes through the narrow alleyway which leads to the back entrance of the town library. “Not a personal one, anyway.”

The truck drives past them with ease.

“Then what is it?” Jaehyun asks.

“A writing journal.”

“So you’ve written in it?”

“Quite a bit, yes. It’s the same journal you saw open on my desk once.”

“As I’ve said, that was on accident. I didn’t read through it.” Jaehyun pulls a face, head tilting to the side. The hand on his hip goes up to brush through his hair. “Anyway, fiction, right?”

“Yes. Mostly fiction.”

Then, with a smile, Jaehyun asks, “Would you read something for me?”

They ought to go inside, now that the library is within sight, Taeyong thinks. Stepping through the door would mean a change of view, atmosphere, and, most importantly, conversation.

“Tell you what, you read something for me and, in exchange, I’ll do anything you want,” Jaehyun adds.

Taeyong considers this. The alleyway is empty now. If one were to talk, no one but he and Jaehyun would hear. “Anything,” he echoes. “That’s quite high.”

“I’m well aware, but it doesn’t make my offer any less serious.”

Taeyong continues to walk, but he eventually stops when he realizes Jaehyun has no intention of following. Where is this going, he wonders. Why the sudden interest in his writing? And if he were to actually read some of his works to Jaehyun, what would happen then?

“Why?” he asks when he turns around yet again to face the elder. It’s happening again, he realizes. The constant push-and-pull; just a few days ago he’d been forgotten, but now he’s being drawn in again.

“Because I’m interested, and because you’re the type who doesn’t talk about himself without being asked,” Jaehyun answers. “Your father did say something along the lines of you being ‘one tough nut to crack,’ but I didn’t think it would be on this degree.”

Taeyong stares. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Not necessarily,” Jaehyun says, shaking his head. “Unless you’re talking about my being interested.”

Then, with one swift motion, Taeyong picks his journal up from its place in his bicycle’s basket and flips through its pages, stopping only when he reaches more than halfway through the notebook.

“From the hands of a weaver: the etymology of ‘confess,’” he begins.

And Jaehyun, whose back has found its place against the yellow, pock-marked cement walls of the alleyway, hangs his head low to hide a smile and listens.

* * *

From the Hands of a Weaver: the Etymology of ‘'Confess”

  1. From the Latin _fateor_, meaning to acknowledge, own, admit… As in, my feet acknowledge that they have wandered from home to arrive on this bridge. Wandered—not ran away—for each step taken I no longer own, on this tottering bridge towards you, whose hands I admit I harbor a desire to befriend, beloved—the thread and needle I shall abandon for your sounds, your touch, the scent that comes with your proximity.
  2. Attached to the Latin prefix _con-_, which indicates a bringing together of things: me and you. Standing on the other side of this bridge, you, with your wide shoulders, aureoled head, skin adored by the sun, limbs that know stone and soil more than their gods do. You are, unbeknownst to many and yourself, a god to me. Between us, then, a separation of heaven and earth.
  3. Together: _confiteor_. _Confess_. To shout praise amidst rows of wooden church pews, or whisper secrets into trembling hands and smothering pillows. What brought us apart? What continues to keep us so? The weaving together of words is the weaving together of worlds—an impossible task this bridge can only conquer as long as it does not collapse; but a task I shall nonetheless attempt alongside the magpies with mere needle and thread if you confess that your feet, like mine, wandered towards this bridge.

* * *

After Taeyong reads from his journal, eyes downcast yet mindful of the impressionist blur that is Jaehyun’s face in his peripheral vision, he closes the notebook in his hand with not so much of a snap but rather a meek ending of things. He’s gone and done it, he realizes. Then, after a moment of clarity, wherein Jaehyun remains an unmoving figure in his sight, wonders if this is how Junhee felt, if this is how it feels to have had it done and over with, if emptiness —harmless and neutral— is all that lies on the other side of a confession.

The answer comes not more than a moment later when, after straightening his back and clearing his throat, Jaehyun walks a step closer to Taeyong and says, “That was after the lovers, wasn’t it? Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo? You wrote it with them in mind?”

Taeyong shakes his head but says, “Yes.” A little breathless, a little in need of distance from Jaehyun. Confessions have aftershocks, he discovers, and the first wave comes rushing up his throat. Suddenly, a burning question: did Jaehyun misunderstand? Or was it that he understood but is insistent on denying that he did to avoid having to deal with the burden of what Taeyong just revealed?

“To write about the lovers —and of Jiknyeo’s confession, too, out of everything—I didn’t expect that from you , ” Jaehyun says, to which Taeyong merely nods. Then, after a pause: “B ut I like it.  Actually, speaking of confessions, I have one of my own to make.”

Taeyong stills. The aftershocks keep on coming: a hitch in his breathing, a restlessness of the arms, and dread in the pit of his stomach. His gaze falls onto Jaehyun’s mouth, where it traces hints of the incoming words there, as though affecting clairvoyance would run a soothing hand over the epicenter of the quake that rests inside his chest.

“I don’t really mind not getting a tour of the library,” Jaehyun says as he takes small steps towards his bicycle. “I’ve been here for more than a month already and, well, you were right; there’s not much to see inside.”

“Oh.” Taeyong blinks. His mind, which has — so far — been running a mile a minute, comes to an abrupt halt. Did he read everything wrong after all? The small smile on Jaehyun’s face when he began to read the poem? The head hung low for the most part? The quiet gaze when he ended it? Was what he thought to be an understanding actually the opposite? A slight prickling in his chest and the glacial numbing that follows —the beginning of calm. “Okay. You have anything in mind? Anything you want to do?” he asks as he slowly places his journal back into his bicycle basket. “Or do you want to head back?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “I’m here because your father thinks I should take time to look around spots I haven’t seen. So, tell me, are there spots around here that I haven’t been to?”

  
  


They end up at the forest track, the one Taeyong occasionally takes as a faster route home, except, this time, they’re heading anywhere but back to the Lee Summerhouse.

“Is this place called anything?” Jaehyun asks as soon as he and Taeyong hop off their bicycles to walk on foot again as they navigate through uneven terrain.

“Yes. This used to be a hiking trail,” Taeyong answers without looking behind to face Jaehyun. “Lots of people used to pass here before the streets were built. They called it ‘The Lovers’ Trail,’ but now it’s just a forgotten forest track.” 

Above them, the sky is an indecisive spread of light and dark clouds ,  one half reminiscent of summer and the other half promising rain. Shadows around this part of the track fall to the ground as a monochromatic gradation of leaf and branch silhouettes —e ach reflection a mosaic of light and dark, Taeyong notes. It takes quite the effort from him not to glance back and stare at the way they cascade down Jaehyun’s face and figure.

It’s the first time he’s ever taken anyone down this path, he realizes. And maybe this, too, is a kind of confession in itself. He briefly wonders how much more he has to give before Jaehyun takes the ball and shares a part of himself, too. He eventually shakes this thought away, however, finding it unfair to expect a positive reciprocation just for trying. Jaehyun doesn’t owe him anything, after all.

Taeyong looks away, just before he steps through a bush and hears Jaehyun ask, “Where are we going exactly?”

“You’ll see,” he says, head trained towards the path before them. He misses the inquisitive look that seizes Jaehyun’s face when he trudges on.

Moments later they arrive at a clearing, where barely a stone’s throw away flows a narrow creek and overhead stands a congregation of trees whose leaves and branches are huddled together in an imperfect circle.

Jaehyun makes a faint sound of amazement that’s only eclipsed by the sound of his bicycle pedals clashing against wayward stones on the path. He eventually follows Taeyong, who walks up to a tree with a generous trunk, places his bicycle to rest against it, and watches Jaehyun do the same.

“This really is a place I haven’t seen, alright,” Jaehyun says, eyes suddenly childlike and evidently working their gears to take in their surroundings in record time. “Seeing this… Who would think Jeju’s impressive skyline is just a one-hour bus ride away?”

Taeyong chuckles at that, shaking his head to say that he understands the sentiment. Wary of the possibility of rain, he picks his journal up from his bicycle basket before continuing to walk forward, pleased by the way Jaehyun follows him wordlessly as though the elder’s footsteps weren’t his own. “People who know this place well enough, obviously,” he quips, and Jaehyun scoffs.

“I suppose you know what this place is called, then. Because I’d like to know.”

Taeyong nods. “It doesn’t have a name. But the bridge over there, or what’s left of it anyway,” he says as he points at an assemblage of wood extended over the creek that looks less a bridge than it is the wreckage of two spindly tree trunks that fell over the creek on accident. “Is the reason the path we just walked through is called ‘The Lover’s’ Trail.”

Jaehyun hums.

And Taeyong, who feels a surge of wildness he suspects the forest is channeling through him, adds, “It’s my favorite place on this island.”

That, too, he realizes only after he’s said it, is a confession.

“I see.” Jaehyun purses his lips. Then, suddenly, with his gaze towards the creek, mumbles, “Water striders.”

Taeyong blinks, brings his journal closer to his chest when Jaehyun begins walking with a newfound fervor towards the water. The elder’s steps are resolute, and Taeyong watches as Jaehyun arrives at the creekside, slips his slippers off, and jumps.

“Freshwater creeks have water striders!” is all that he hears before the splash — the crisp sound of limbs breaking and submerging through the surface of the water. And it takes Taeyong a few minutes to fully comprehend the scene unfolding in front of him, of Jaehyun bent over and beating recklessly through the creek with the water up to his knees. The image is unlikely only because of what Taeyong perceives to be a carefreeness he seldom sees from Jaehyun.

“Do me a favor!” Jaehyun calls, arms waving up and beckoning for Taeyong. “Drop your journal and come have a look!”

And Taeyong does as he is told, making sure to set his journal on the grass a few steps away from the creek before going into the water. He doesn’t have it in him to decline anyway, he thinks, not when Jaehyun looks genuinely amused and excited, which he isn’t on a regular basis. Gone is the 24-year-old postgraduate student from America with his impeccably tousled hair, arms always akimbo, and mouth always saying the right things. What’s left in this moment, Taeyong hopes, is the Jaehyun who only makes himself known in the few defenseless, yawning minutes before sleeping and waking up.

The water nips at Taeyong’s skin during the initial contact, the touch an unwelcoming cold that eventually warms only after the first few steps. Taeyong walks up to Jaehyun’s side in large strides, stopping to find the elder focused on a patch of waterweeds near the creekside. He feels the urge to ask what exactly Jaehyun wants him to look at, but the elder beats him to it.

“ _ Aquarius paludum _ ,” Jaehyun says as he nods at the waterweeds. “One of the most common species of the water strider present in Korea.” He uses a hand to splash water near the resplendent patch of waterweeds, causing a shock of ripples to perturb the surface water where, just a moment after, Taeyongs spots a four-legged insect glide over the water towards his knees. “Also known as—”

“Jesus bugs,” Taeyong finishes, vaguely remembering one entry from the various encyclopedias he had to go through to impress one of his father’s friends. “Because they don’t sink and appear to be walking on water when they move.”

There’s a budding chuckle on Jaeyun’s mouth that heightens the ludic glint in his eyes when he nods. “I was going to say ‘one of the wise mythical creatures of the Native American Zuni tribe,’” he says. “But you’re right, too, as always. As expected of a professor’s son.”

Taeyong shrugs, humming as he drops a lousy kick at the water. “Doubt genes have anything to do with what I know.”

“A valid point to raise, but the rest of you...”

Taeyong cocks his head to one side. “Insulting my genes would just be a roundabout way of insulting my parents.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Wasn’t planning on insulting them,” he says, before swiftly moving towards another patch of waterweeds.

Taeyong stands still, wonders if aftershocks can happen even after almost an hour since the initial quake. He doesn’t recall anything about the topic in the encyclopedias he has read.

  
  
  


After Taeyong regains a semblance of composure, Jaehyun steps out of the creek and runs up towards where Taeyong is sitting on the grass with his journal on his lap. Above them the sky is dim and heavy with the anticipation of rain. Breathing in, one realizes that the ground, too, is anticipating; its blades of grass grow pliant against the wind, and the soil on which they stand is cooling over and wafting an earthy smell into the air.

“It’s started to drizzle,” Jaehyun announces when he arrives at Taeyong’s side. He offers a hand to help the younger up, the corners of his mouth curling into a half-smile when Taeyong takes it and lets himself be pulled up. “Race you home?”

“Sure.” Taeyong nods, hand still wrapped around Jaehyun’s palm. The touch lingers even after it’s gone, replaced by an absence which, he notes, might just be the opposite of what he yearns for.

They walk back to the tree where they left their bikes without rush. The race doesn’t start until after they’re mounted on their bikes, after all. 

But the walk back is cut short when—without warning—the rain, as if finally letting go of its hesitations, falls hard and beats mercilessly to the ground. With a brief exchange of looks, both Taeyong and Jaehyun turn and head back towards the direction of the creek, where they cross the rickety bridge and take refuge under the wooden gazebo directly across it.

They make it in one piece, with only a portion of their heads and shoulders damp from the rain. Immediately, warmth is sought for, and they find it tucked into one corner of the gazebo to which they fold themselves into; Taeyong takes a seat on a dry spot of the baluster railing, while Jaehyun stands in front of him with his arms crossed. They touch, but only slightly so, only when Taeyong swings his legs and feet tentatively forward, grazing Jaehyun’s legs in a manner that says the contact is anything but intentional.

Above them the roof, though made of wood and pockmarked with holes from years of disuse, is, fortunately, durable enough to hold out against the rain which only grows more torrential by the minute. 

“So,” Jaehyun begins, eyeing the journal on Taeyong’s lap. He looks away when Taeyong’s gaze shifts towards his knees as though tracing his line-of-sight. “I was wondering,” he continues, clearing his throat. He lets his gaze wander towards the bridge he and Taeyong just crossed earlier.

Taeyong eyebrows perk up in interest, but he doesn’t say anything, just lets Jaehyun continue:

“What do you think the lovers do whenever they’re left alone and away from each other?”

It’s an unexpected question, to say the least. It’s something Taeyong thought nobody else bothered to ask: what happens to the lovers during the annual year-long wait?

“The lovers,” Jaehyun repeats, continuing when he doesn’t receive an immediate reply from Taeyong. “They only meet once a year. On that bridge there. Isn’t that lonely?”

“I suppose. Yes.” Taeyong nods. His fingers grip the spine of his journal as he adds, “But there are remedies to distance. Physical proximity isn’t the height of a romance.”

Jaehyun smiles at this, clearly amused. “Then what remedy do you imagine is there for the lovers?”

“Well, trust,” Taeyong says, tone as-a-matter-of-fact. “And a clawing kind of desperation. They keep each other in their thoughts. They don’t forget. They remind each other of their existences by—”

“Calling each other’s names as their own,” Jaehyun cuts him off, finishes the thought smoothly as though he came up with it himself.

Taeyong freezes. No, it can’t be, he thinks. If his memory were to be trusted, he definitely doesn’t recall talking to Jaehyun about his journal entry on this subject, which leaves him with two things: either Jaehyun thinks the same way he does or that Jaehyun—despite denying the possibility—actually read through his journal.

“You read through it. My journal,” he says, voice flat and devoid of the accusation in his words. “You said you didn’t but you did.”

Wordlessly, Jaehyun drops down on one knee in front of him. “Your foot,” he says, shoulders a strong line that buoys his bowed head. He doesn’t look up, not even to acknowledge Taeyong’s question. “You must’ve cut it when we crossed the bridge.”

It’s a commendable attempt at a change in topic, Taeyong notes, but he doesn’t call it out. At least not yet. Instead, he lets it, lets Jaehyun avoid his gaze, lets Jaehyun conjure a handkerchief from his shorts pocket, lets fingers cup the base of his left foot as he hears Jaehyun say, “The cut isn't deep, but this might still hurt a bit.” 

Taeyong shakes his head. There’s no way he could’ve wounded himself without noticing, he thinks, but when Jaehyun presses the handkerchief against his skin, he reels back and winces. The hurt is, suddenly, there.

It’s a thumb-sized cut near his big toe. Jaehyun pulls Taeyong’s slipper away from the younger’s left foot before pressing the handkerchief back down against the cut, gentler this time, if only to keep Taeyong from pulling away. “I’m sorry. You’re right,” he says. “I skimmed through it. I lied. Curiosity got the best of me.”

Silence, one that’s filled in only by the staccato sound of rain pouring from all sides of the gazebo. 

Taeyong lets his shoulders fall lax as he watches Jaehyun wrap and tie the handkerchief into a knot over his foot. For the first time around the elder’s presence, he finds that he doesn’t know exactly what to say. It’s bewildering — the feeling —but he doesn’t shake it off, only acknowledges that, at the face of direct honesty from Jaehyun, he is rendered helpless.

“You’re not mad,” Jaehyun comments. His hands have left Taeyong’s foot, but he remains crouching with one knee planted to the ground.

Taeyong shrugs. “I can’t see why I should be. It’s just fiction.”

This, he knows, is only half true, and Jaehyun doesn’t allow him the bliss of denial when he says:

“But the best works of fiction are those who have their writers’ souls inflected on each word, paragraph, and punctuation.”

“And, fiction or not,” Jaehyun continues, voice firm and final. “I still shouldn’t have read it. Not without your permission.” There’s a brief pause, one in which Jaehyun alternatively closes and unfurls his fingers from his palm as though he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, before he says, “Unless, of course, you left it there because you wanted me to read it.”

A new quake. Taeyong’s hands close into fists against the baluster. He takes a deep breath, fights the nascent lump in his throat before asking, “What makes you think I did?”

“Because.” Jaehyun’s gaze fall onto the leather notebook on Taeyong’s lap. “Your journal’s practically glued to your hip as it has always been and as it is now.”

And  _ this _ , Taeyong learns with a clarity he’s never encountered before, is the very thing he wants from others: to be seen. To be effortlessly read and understood at first glance. To be so familiar to one person that all attempts at hiding and self-deception become futile and useless. To be known by someone else more than he knows himself. He yearns for it, this understanding, and Jaehyun offers it up to him without breaking a sweat.

“What would you do if I said, ‘You’re right’?” Taeyong quizzes. There’s a hundred questions waiting to be asked, he finds, but none as important as the one that concerns Jaehyun’s feelings for him. “That I  _ did _ leave my journal behind that day because I wanted you to read through it.”

“Exactly this. Have this conversation and ask you why,” Jaehyun answers with a grunt as he finally sits down on the floor and crosses his legs. “Why did you do it?”

Because I know you and you know me, Taeyong finds himself physically aching to say . The quiver on his lip, the thrumming in his chest, the warmth rising to his face, the shoulders gravitating towards Jaehyun—all these evidences of a compulsion not so easily done away with through one confession .  _ Because _ , his mind attempts at reason, being close to you fills me with the need to be heard and understood by you. Because there are things I can only say to you. Because I think, through you, I can understand myself better, too.

And that’s the thing with attraction, he realizes; it is rarely a selfless affair. A pang of guilt colliding with relief makes itself known in the pit of his stomach: I’m sorry it has to be you. I’m sorry I’m grateful that it’s you, Jaehyun.

“Because I know you and you know me,” Taeyong mumbles. “Is what I would’ve said.”

“Because you know me, and I know you,” Jaehyun echoes as he stands up slowly to stretch, repeating Taeyong’s words with slight pauses in between as though buying time to consider their meaning. When he stops, he ends up a few steps directly in front of the younger, with his arms hanging limp by his sides. “That would’ve been a good line. No wonder you’re a writer. You write well. You think up good lines.”

Taeyong shakes his head at this, huffing. He blames the sudden frustration building inside of him. “It’s hardly any use if the things I write aren’t understood the way they should be. The way I mean them to be.”

“Maybe you just have to find a better way of saying things.”

“Like?”

“Something more direct, perhaps.”

A beat, then Taeyong asks, “If I were to be more direct, then would you understand?” He says this as he looks at Jaehyun, who has both hands on his hips and his head trained towards the white knot around Taeyong’s foot. Taeyong imagines the look on Jaehyun’s face right now, wonders if it’s wearing the same, studious gaze he sees the elder wear when he’s hunched over the typewriter or poring over his notes. It’s the face of the perfect student he knows his father admires, that he knows he wants to emulate and should emulate. 

He looks away.

The rain, which earlier poured as though without any intention of stopping, has let up, left with no evidence of it ever having existed except for the affable drizzle that has taken its place. Taeyong makes a mental note of how much he wishes his emotions would do the same.

“Hear me out,” he finally says after a considerable amount of silence has passed between him and Jaehyun, voice coming out small, uncertain. “In exchange for the poem I read, hear me out.”

“If you’re planning on saying what I think you want to say, then don’t,” Jaehyun says as he lifts his chin up, and the look on his face speaks of a coldness Taeyong knows all too well by now. “ I can’t.”

“I thought you said you’d do anything.”

“ _ Anything _ but that. We can’t talk of such things. We shouldn’t.”

“Then we won’t talk. But you have to show me, at least,” Taeyong says. He remembers a French proverb:  _ entre deux coeurs qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles _ . Between two hearts that love each other, there’s no need for words. “Show me how you would have reacted if I said what I wanted to say.”

At that, Jaehyun sighs. And, all of a sudden, the piercing look on his face softens, morphs into a weak-smiled helplessness. “You’re cruel, Lee Taeyong,” he says, before taking the few steps left to close the gap between him and the younger.

What follows the short silence that ensues after is a hand wrapping itself gingerly around Taeyong’s wrist, the touch of it light and loose. Taeyong could easily resist it, could easily pull his hand away from the grasp it is ensnared in, but he doesn’t; he only affects the same abandon he feels in Jaehyun’s actions and surrenders his hand as if to say, do away with it as you wish, it’s been yours ever since before, but most especially now.

Jaehyun takes Taeyong’s hand into his and brings it up to his face, where he lets his nose and lips rest and nuzzle against the ridges of Taeyong’s knuckles and fingers. They stay as they are, for a moment: like this, with Jaehyun inhaling deeply against the skin of Taeyong’s hand, head and torso bent as though kissing the hand of a maiden pursued —the curve of Taeyong’s extended arm between them, a magpie bridge of their own making.

“This,” Jaehyun begins to say, lips brushing lightly over Taeyong’s skin with every syllable spoken. “ I would’ve done this.”

It’s only when Taeyong prises his hand away from Jaehyun’s grasp to let his palm rest against the elder’s cheek do they both look at each other eye-to-eye, with Jaehyun leaning just slightly against Taeyong’s touch and Taeyong refusing to look away and pretend he didn’t stare as he would have done weeks ago or even yesterday. At last —one could say— they’re meeting, in their own in-between. And, here, Taeyong stares back at Jaehyun with certainty, eyes wishing to convey things he doesn’t want to say out of fear that doing so would break the moment: you read me right, Jaehyun, this is who I am, and this is what I want, and this, too, is who you are.

Taeyong pulls himself up to bring his face closer to Jaehyun’s, but the elder catches his movement and keeps him from doing what he intends to do with the push of a hand down his shoulder.

Shaking his head, Jaehyun once again wraps fingers around Taeyong’s hand against his cheek. And there’s force there, Taeyong notes, but not enough to hurt.

“You’re making this really hard for me,” Jaehyun says. His eyes land somewhere on Taeyong’s face and, when Taeyong once again follows his line-of-sight, he finds that the elder is staring openly at his mouth.

Parting his lips unconsciously, Taeyong stares back and traces the curve of Jaehyun’s pink mouth with his gaze . After a moment, he tips his chin just slightly, closes his eyes to avoid the small hint of conflict in Jaehyun’s eyes, and waits.

And it happens then and there, happens even when he’s half-convinced it won’t. It starts with Jaehyun touching a careful thumb over Taeyong’s lower lip, where it brushes from left to right and unsettles the chapped skin there with its very movement. Then it stops, finds its place against Taeyong’s chin and, all of a sudden, there are lips against Taeyong’s own.

The collision isn’t so much a crash as it is a warm and slow melting of skin against skin. Jaehyun kisses him chastely, softly, as though afraid something as gentle as this could scar and hurt. It almost feels as if once Taeyong opens his eyes, he’ll find nothing but air and a puddle of foam on the ground where Jaehyun is standing.

When Taeyong does open his eyes to peek, however, Jaehyun is still there, kissing him. And when he opens his mouth to kiss back, Jaehyun only pulls away slightly to breathe over his lips, angle their faces, and then slot their mouths back perfectly together. Jaehyun urges Taeyong to keep his lips closed, as if to say this is the farthest they can go, that a closed-mouthed kiss is the only thing Jaehyun can allow himself to take, making this kiss more conciliatory than it is anything else.

Taeyong counts one, two, three kisses, before Jaehyun completely pulls back and unknowingly brings Taeyong’s breath away with him.

“Satisfied now?” Jaehyun asks, but he doesn’t receive an answer, at least not a verbal one anyway, because Taeyong only shakes his head before yanking him down by the collar of his shirt and going in for another kiss.

The second meeting of their lips is nothing like the first. Taeyong kisses as though famished, one hand instinctively making its way to cup the back of Jaehyun’s head for leverage as he arches his face and body up to chase the elder’s opened mouth. He kisses to discover: to taste more, know more, feel more. And, for a moment, it works. Jaehyun closes his eyes and gives in. The journal on Taeyong’s lap falls with a thud to the ground when Taeyong opens his legs to let Jaehyun slot in between and press closer against him. He registers a momentary fear of falling off his seat on the baluster that is easily done away with when Jaehyun places a firm hand over his hip and holds him in place as he leans and presses in.

It happens too soon and too fast. In the suffocating heat of the kiss, Taeyong’s hand wanders under Jaehyun’s shirt and settles to touch the warm, pliant skin there, only to be stopped by fingers wrapping around his wrist. It is only in retrospect that Taeyong learns those fingers were a warning: he moans into the elder’s lips and unintentionally grinds against the elder’s crotch, causing Jaehyun to press two hands against his chest and tear their faces and bodies away from each other with an air of finality.

“We should go,” Jaehyun says right after, breathless despite the obvious affectation of control. He steps away from Taeyong to fix his hair and smoothen the newly-formed creases on his shirt. “Head back before we end up doing more things we’ll regret.”

“Okay,” is all that Taeyong can say in return. The light-headedness has come and gone as fast as it arrived, and now he finds himself weighed back to the ground. He understands where they’re coming from —Jaehyun’s words, and so he doesn’t push, only wishes he could say he doesn’t regret anything, doesn’t wish what just happened didn’t happen.

“We’re safe.” Jaehyun nods, more to himself than to Taeyong, as he turns towards the direction of the spindly bridge over the creek. “As long as nobody knows, and as long as we stop here, we won’t have anything to be ashamed of. We’re good.”

Taeyong gets off from his seat on the baluster and crouches to pick his journal up from where it lies open and vulnerable on the ground. He could choose to leave it there, he realizes, for the words written on its pages serve nothing now. Used up. Done away and over with. Just like that.

But he doesn’t leave it, at least not while Jaehyun could see if he were to do it. He picks it up, closes it with a snap, and keeps it by his side.

“The rain’s stopped,” Jaehyun says, tone sounding back to how it was before the kiss, how it has always been with Taeyong. “I could race you back home now.”

Taeyong smiles at this, albeit weakly. “I need to know,” he says. “Are we on speaking terms or are you saying the last words you’ll ever speak to me just to make the ride back less awkward?” The grip he has around his journal is tight, and it grows even tighter when he takes a step forward and remembers the bandaged cut on his left foot.

“We’re on speaking terms when it comes to anything but this,” Jaehyun answers, and the look in his eyes, though not saying anything, seems to Taeyong as if they’re pleading for understanding.

And so he gives it. “Understood,” he says, walking to catch up to the elder who stands at the foot of the gazebo. Then, after a moment of silence, he adds, “So, just like that, we’re leaving.”

“Yes.” Jaehyun nods. He echoes Taeyong when he says, “And just like that, we’re leaving.”

* * *

_ It’s that dreaded time of the year again. After the meeting on the bridge, comes the parting. _

_ They should be used to it by now but, somehow, the certainty of meeting again does not save them from the pain of this needed separation. _

_ The magpies cry with the sky when they let go—one back to heaven, and the other down to Earth. _

_ And, just like that, the wait begins anew. Each lover’s favorite places become any window from which they can witness the Sun and the Moon bring with them the changing of days. It brings them closer. _

_ But there’s only so much that waiting can do. _

_ Sound, the lovers discover, travels slower than light. But it nevertheless arrives where it needs to. And so they call each other’s names. First, as an expression of their longing, of how they wish to find the other close despite the distance. And second, and perhaps most importantly, to sound that they still exist on the other side, waiting. _

_ In this way, Jiknyeo’s name becomes Gyeonwu’s own the same way Gyeonwu’s name becomes Jiknyeo’s. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first, an apology to the dear prompter for not finishing this fic within the ficfest's timeframe. i tried my best, but life got busy. but i will most definitely finish this fic in my own time. thank you so much and i hope you still enjoyed it.
> 
> second, my sincerest thanks to n, a, and j, without whom i would've been less confident and less motivated with regards to this fic.
> 
> lastly, a big thanks to the jaeyong ficfest moderators for being just plain awesome and understanding. this is the smoothest ficfest i've ever had the honor to join, and it's all thanks to you guys.
> 
> to everyone else, i wish you all well. now i'm going to continue writing this fic in my own little corner. see you!

**Author's Note:**

> The song that Taeyong plays on the piano in this chapter is Debussy's "La fille aux cheveux de lin" (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair). It was named after the eponymous poem by the French poet Leconte de Lisle which you can read in full  
[ here. ](http://www.poemswithoutfrontiers.com/La_Fille_aux_Cheveux_de_Lin.html)


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